CLOCKWORK
by Roseveare
Summary: Steampunk Haven. Amnesiac fugitive Audrey Parker hires privateer airship captain Duke Crocker's Cape Rouge to fly her safe passage out of the city-state of Heppa, but they find their escape pursued by police automaton Nathan Wuornos and a deadly mystery enemy. [COMPLETE]
1. PART 1: Chapter 1

TITLE: Clockwork  
AUTHOR: roseveare  
RATING: R/Mature  
LENGTH: Approx 90,000 words total  
PAIRING: Audrey/Duke/Nathan  
SUMMARY: Steampunk Haven. Amnesiac fugitive Audrey Parker hires privateer airship captain Duke Crocker's _Cape Rouge_ to fly her safe passage out of the city-state of Heppa, but they find their escape pursued by police automaton Nathan Wuornos and a deadly mystery enemy.  
NOTES: Rabbitt made a list of prompts for possible Haven AUs on Tumblr, including "steampunk AU!", and is therefore almost completely to blame for this. I said I'd draw the thing, I have no idea how this happened.  
DISCLAIMER: Virtually everything I know about airships was from reading the Wikipedia entry, although I also looked at enough steampunk art after Wikipedia to conclude This Is Not About Science. In any case, please forgive historical and technological and genre gaffs (I don't actually know hell of a lot about Steampunk, either).

* * *

 **CLOCKWORK**

 **Part 1**

 **1.**

The woman of Duke's dreams was apparently called _Audrey_. Granted, he'd only just met her, in _Bar Gull_ on the inner trading ring high up on Heppa's docking towers, courtesy of barmaid Tracey sending word she might have a potential paying passenger for him. Apart from the fact she was wearing a torn dress and needed passage out of Heppa fast, Duke didn't know anything about his mystery woman, but it seemed they were equal in that, since neither did she.

"So you really don't remember _anything_?" he pressed, fascinated. "Just woke up one day - hey, who am I? Think I'll go on the run from the police."

She looked irked and clenched her fingers on the edge of the table. Neither of them were drinking, but Duke had ordered a plate of pork scratchings, the closest to food the bar had available. "They came after _me_ ," she said. "I had an ID in my pocket with my picture and the name Audrey Parker on it. That's all I know. And, apparently, that I'm really good at punching people."

She narrowed her eyes on that to make it a threat, and Duke inclined his head, surrendering.

There had to be something about women who looked like trouble that Duke found impossible to resist. "I take it you can pay for the passage," he prompted, because some things _were_ non-negotiable, even if his new-found affections were outraged with him. What? He _hoped_ she could pay.

"It depends what these are worth." She reached into her dress and pulled out a large handful of clattering metal tokens and other ephemera. She scattered them onto the table top, then followed them with another handful, and Duke felt his jaw drop.

He reached out to stop her producing anything more. "Whoa, whoa, _whoa_. Not here!" Because two of the items she'd dumped on the table already were the sidearm and ID chip of a Heppa law enforcement officer. And yeah, Duke could do something useful with that, not to mention the tokens, but their presence was not exactly something to broadcast.

His passenger-to-be smirked, enjoying his flailing. "I'm good for it? When can we leave?"

"Yeah, it looks like. And when do you _want_ to leave?"

"How about right now?"

Duke hadn't entirely been expecting that. He still had things to attend to on Heppa, not to mention refuelling was kind of essential. He patted the compressed gas canisters next to his chair with a tight smile. He'd been on his way back to his vessel with the supplies when Tracey sent word. "Need another trip out to pick up a last few cans, then we're good. What say you meet me at bay 12-4a in two hours?"

She did not look happy. She said, with annoyed urgency, "How about _now_?"

Duke frowned at the ripped corset. "What exactly have you been doing, Miss I-Don't-Remember?"

"You can just call me Audrey," she said. "I'm pretty sure that much is right. And running, mostly, is what I've been doing." She lowered her voice. "I told you, they came after _me_. I'm not paying for any crimes I don't remember doing, so I don't care if it is the police, and I don't care what they have on me."

"Hey." Duke shrugged. "I don't care either, but you're not worth falling out of the sky for. I have to get at least two more canisters after these before I haul anchor, sweetheart, non-negotiable. Call it an hour." He'd have to run, for that. "12-4a, the _Cape Rouge_. Okay?"

"All right." She scowled, still unhappy. "Can I wait on your boat?"

"...No, you can not," Duke said emphatically, because he might be in love, but he had only just met her and trust didn't go that far. He'd _loved_ Evi, but _trusting_ her was out of the question no matter how long he'd known her. Audrey was looking around nervously, and it struck him that she didn't have anywhere else to go, anywhere she dared spend that hour. "Wait, what, they're _here_?" He suddenly clicked to it. "When you say they're chasing you, you mean they're chasing you _right now?_ "

She nodded tightly, fingers playing with the stolen gun inside her dress.

Duke swore quite a lot, thinking about the chances he hadn't already been tagged by the cops, been seen with her by everyone in the damn bar, and that he wasn't in this up to his neck whether he wanted to be or not.

But he was still not planning to fall out of the sky halfway to Callion, and he'd already paid for all the canisters. "Okay," he said, trying to get control of his breathing and his pounding heart. He'd been a fugitive before, but seriously, she had to pick _Heppa_? Heppa _sucked_. They had their freakin' automated police force and eyes everywhere. "You go hide in the ladies room for an hour, if that's what it takes, and I will be back when I've loaded up the essentials. And, honey, you'd better be worth this."

For that, she flashed her gun at him in warning, which wasn't the wisest thing to do if you were dependant on someone for safe passage out - and really, he was not obliged to _come back_. But it occurred to him that what he just said could be read a couple of ways, so he let it go. He shoved his basket of pork scratchings at her and got up, pretending not to notice, as he snuck a glance back in leaving, how she fell on them like she hadn't eaten all day.

 _Fuckshitdamnit_ , Duke thought, eying the clockwork cops milling around outside the bar. In the docking ring plaza, there was a casino, and a few store fronts belonging to small-time vendors. One of the cops looked right at him. Duke was taken aback for a moment by the illusion of intelligence and purpose in the artificial features, in the way the officer moved. He was a real high-end job for a police automaton, with actual hair and a face painted up to look almost human, but you could still see the joints around the jaw that allowed movement. He was dressed up fancy, too, like a gentleman almost, or at least a gentleman's clockwork toy. Duke had known Heppa had long since started branching into the upper ranks with their plans to automate the police force, but mostly those Duke had encountered were the stripped-down automata they used for everyday patrolling. The cop's attention moved on from him, and the two standard models with him were both looking the wrong way, so Duke beat it, hauling the canisters with him, uncomfortably conscious of the grating sound they made against the floor as they were dragged.

The advantage of Heppa, far and away above most other city states, was its docking towers. It was hell of a plus not to have to ditch gas or hit ground to make a stop over. Yeah, Heppa was advanced, Heppa was great, apart from all the other ways in which it _sucked_.

Duke hurried back to the _Cape Rouge's_ berth, where he had to take the canisters across the ramp one by one, rolling them with both hands. He got them stashed and then sprinted back out. With the police sniffing around, best to get the next two loaded, he figured, before he returned to _Bar Gull_ for Audrey Parker. They'd have a lot more mobility if they needed to run.

Unfortunately, the airship supply station covered levels 5 through 8, a fair trek down. The police were still staking out the lifts but they weren't after him, _yet_ , so Duke walked past them as calmly as he could fake. The fancy plain-clothes cop was talking to the vendors - looked like he had a vocabulary that extended to more than stock law enforcement phrases, too - and sooner or later they'd reach the bar.

Duke discovered cops seemed to be a feature on all the levels. A few human ones in the mix definitely meant this was more than routine crap. What even _was_ Audrey Parker, to merit all of this?

They weren't a visible presence as he headed back up through the level 12 ring with the canisters, which made him nervous. As he returned from his ship for the last time, he spotted them coming out of the casino.

 _Damn_. The bar was next. Duke dived through the open door, past a staggering drunk, into the smoke-filled interior. He couldn't see Audrey. He shoved through to the ladies room door and hammered on it. Two women opened it and glared at him, but Audrey emerged from a cubicle behind them. "Come on!" Duke gestured frantically.

"You came back," she said, looking a little wide-eyed. She hadn't trusted him.

"I'm wounded." Duke grabbed her hand. Cops were coming through the main door. There had to be a service door to this place...

There was a balcony. He hustled her toward it. At the end of the balcony, another balcony belonging to the adjoining casino was less than three feet away. The drop into the sprawling metropolis of Heppa below was staggering, and the keel of someone else's airship loomed ominously overhead, blocking the light, but the step across was eminently doable. "Can you-" Duke began.

"Already on it!" She was clambering and jumping before he could offer her a hand. Her boot caught the rail in the gap between its raised heel and foot, and she sort of pivoted forward. A casino client in an expensive suit and cravat grinningly caught her and handed her down.

Around Duke, the commotion stirred by their actions was drawing the cops. But they were heading for the balcony, which left time to cut back through the casino before the cops realised what Duke was doing, since _these_ cops were all clockwork-brained automatons.

Duke made the jump less gracefully, and Audrey caught his arm and hauled him forward over the rail.

Then they were running full-pelt through the casino, causing more of a stir. Out of the main entrance and into the plaza ring again, and-

The goddamn cops were pushing out of the bar, faster than Duke had expected, with the plain clothes officer in the lead. Duke shoved Audrey ahead of him. They had to ascend a short staircase, then charge around almost half the outer ring to reach berth 4a.

The _Cape Rouge_ awaited them, bobbing gently on her tethers in Heppa's low-level air currents. Her body was fine carved lightweight wood, shaped at least superficially like an ocean going vessel. A complex net sculpted her air bags to a shape of elegance. She had propulsion from a rear propeller and two side nacelles that jutted out on stubby little wings.

A clamour sounded behind them as the police automata, with their inferior balance, ballsed-up the sharp turning onto the outer ring and fell all over each other. Some things were predictable. The officer came in sight, though, escaping the mistake and the pile-up.

"Go!" Duke bawled, and they scrambled up the ramp. Duke kicked all the fixings off the ramp and tossed a knife to Audrey. "Cut all the mooring ropes. Just cut them! Damn it!" The ramp wasn't built to be disengaged speedily. He reached down and hauled it up and out with both hands, just before the oncoming clockwork policeman could get his foot on it to weigh it down. Duke and the cop both wavered off-balance on opposite sides of the drop, frantically trying to hold back their built-up momentum and staring down at the ramp as it fell to the city beneath.

"You might have killed someone!" the police automaton said, appalled. His voice was low and mellow with the _whirr_ of gears and a slight breathy hiss in it.

"I really hope not," Duke said, sincerely, meeting the guy's eyes in his alarm.

A pistol, sharply raised, moved around to bear upon him. "Stop now, before-"

Audrey must have cut the moorings, because the _Cape Rouge_ moved underneath them. The pistol levelled and fired, but Duke was already hitting the deck. He heard the rear propeller whizz to life below them. Duke wondered if Audrey knew what she was doing. They needed to release more gas into the airbag if they wanted to rise up and clear the rest of Heppa's skyline.

The other automata were clattering up on the circle, uniformed dolls with dull metal faces and crude features. They had guns, too. The officer had stumbled as the movement of the _Cape Rouge_ jolted the platform... There was still a mooring rope attached, close to where the walkway had been, but it was groaning against the pull of the engines as the boat strained to leave. The _Cape Rouge_ was actually rising somewhat by herself, helped by a handy wind current, but more lift was needed.

"Bye," Duke said, waving and ducking down, and the wooden rail saved him from the shots of the police as he scrambled low across a deck that was now too elevated for them to score him from below. He swore as a change in the direction of the impact noises and a distressed whine from the propeller indicated they were shooting at that, instead.

Lift. He needed _lift_.

He didn't need to install new canisters. There was still a little gas in the old ones, already attached to the base of the _Cape Rouge's_ two airbags. He turned them on and left the remainder of both to drain up into the canvas. A sharp snap and a jolt followed the first tug, indicating the last mooring rope had snapped, and they bounded free, upward into the skies.

Audrey's hands were at the controls, although flapping a little helplessly. "Is it all right?" she asked. "I didn't know what else to do."

"It's fine!" Duke gripped her shoulder and pretty much felt like collapsing. Talk about narrow escapes... "Just need to... catch an air current... then we can cut the engine and leave it to the winds." They were rising so fast now, with the gas cylinders he'd left open, that they'd be a blur before the Heppa police could launch anything to catch them. Hiding in the cloud layer had its own risks, but today, he'd take them. He made a few adjustments, tipped his head upward at the clouds they were aimed for, and staggered to the side of the boat to affirm how far Heppa had retreated below.

"What are they?" Audrey asked, sounding more collected now as she took from his limbless collapse against the safety rail that they were safe.

"What?" Duke asked blankly.

"The things in the police uniforms. They're not people. They look... mechanical."

"Oh," Duke said. "Police automata. On Heppa, they couldn't persuade enough real people to sign up for the job of policing this shithole city state, so they opted for manufactured policemen. You ever heard of the term 'stickler for the rules'? You haven't seen a thing until you've tried to reason with one of these guys."

She looked startled by the answer. He wondered where she'd _come from_ , not to have even heard of all this. Or had it just been wiped with the rest of her memory?

Duke groaned as he rose to his feet, aching from muscles he'd wrenched tipping clear the walkway. "I should go check we didn't sustain any damage when that last mooring rope snapped. Then I'll show you to the guest quarters."

He staggered to the back of the boat. Flight was still jerky because they were still moving fast, and maybe he needed to cut off the gas before they rose too high: perhaps there'd been more left in the scrapings at the bottom of the canisters than he'd thought. But he'd do the check first.

As he leaned over the back of the ship, a hand like a vise reached up and clamped around his throat.

His cry was choked off, but he heard Audrey's boots clatter up behind him, heard her gasp as he tumbled backwards to the deck with the police automaton's weight on top of him.

It was the one with the face, hair and freakin' vest and suit pants. Duke lashed out with his fist, scoring a hinged jaw, but only rattled it and no doubt caused more damage to his hand. The cop didn't even pay any attention to Duke's swinging fist, reaching back stiffly to score, on the second try, the pistol holstered at the back of his belt. He pulled it out and levelled it at Audrey. His hand was still on Duke's throat and the world was starting to go bright and spotty at the edges.

"Let him go!" Audrey said. Duke struggled to roll his eyes back to see her. She had a gun levelled, too.

"Put the weapon down," the mechanical man responded, "and turn this airship around."

"You're killing him," Audrey said urgently, "and I don't know how to turn the ship." Duke's hand scrambled at the mechanical face, looking for a joint, for a weakness, but even the mechanisms of the eyes were hard to the touch and his fingers were too weakened to do any damage.

But the officer considered, and the grip loosened, allowing Duke to heave in air. "Audrey Parker, you are under arrest as a fugitive. I have orders to return you to Central Command on Heppa. Privateer captain Crocker, I require you to turn this vessel around. You will cooperate?"

"They really fed you a dictionary, didn't they?" Duke said, and tightened the muscles in his left arm and leg in the moment before he released the saved-up energy in a burst, rolling and trying to buck the police automaton off him. It didn't quite work - they tussled together for a moment, the weight of the clockwork man heavy on Duke's back - but then a bullet _pinged_ off metal somewhere and his opponent jolted.

"That won't work," the automaton told Audrey, annoyed. "In fact, a ricochet would be more likely to harm-"

The distraction was enough to let Duke break free, scuttling on hands and knees. He hadn't safely been able to carry a weapon on Heppa, but there was one stashed next to the safety ropes on the starboard side, only a few feet away. He drew it, but suddenly a metal arm was there, fingers clamping agony around his bicep, numbing the hand he'd wrapped around the gun. "I have no wish to kill you and be forced to bring this airship back to dock inexpertly at the risk of more damage to citizens and infrastructure."

So the automaton was stuffed, too, Duke thought, through the pain in his arm. _He_ didn't know how to fly the _Rouge_ and nor did Audrey. Well, hell with him. "You should have thought of that before you started jumping onto other people's boats!"

"Your cooperation wouldn't be _unreasonable_ in this situation." The cop managed to sound a fraction exasperated.

Audrey had given up on the gun and she moved in now to grab the officer's gun arm, forcing it down with her weight. "Let's face it," she panted in the mechanical man's ear. "You want _him_ alive and you want _me_ alive. You're not going to use that anyway."

The automaton dropped the gun and used his free hand to shove her off, instead. But they were all three of them grappling close-quarters, now, and Audrey was fierce for a little blonde slip of a thing. The cop's mechanical body was strong and tough, but only as strong as the weight his joints could support, and his fight was hampered by his unwillingness to risk inflicting serious damage. Between them, Duke and Audrey managed to hold his shoulders and wrestle him to the deck. Duke was definitely going to have bruises where parts of him bounced off the metal body. He caught his hand in the brush of hair on the lifelike head and bounced the metal skull off his deck as hard as he could. The cop's face froze eerily.

"Is he unconscious?" Audrey asked.

"Rattled his mechanics," Duke panted, reaching for the dropped gun on the deck. "Damn things. Shit! Get back, quick... I know how to deal with his kind." He got to his feet with the pistol in hand even as the police automaton stirred and rolled up.

Duke leaned down to ensure he was met directly with the _click_ of a pistol inches from his glass eyeball. "Maybe this won't kill you, since magic at least partly gave you 'life', but it stands a good chance of destroying the delicate mechanisms that allow you to _think_. Which _will_ get you out of my hair."

The clockwork lawman's jaw gaped, then snapped shut. His eyes widened. He blinked, then met the threat with all the artificial lines of his face set tense and tight. It was so oddly human... Duke's finger tightened reflexively on the trigger as he tensed in response.

"Don't! Don't do it!" Audrey struck his hand, and a shot fired, but screeched off the automaton's forearm where it braced on the deck next to his head.

Duke swore. "I wasn't going to, but _you_ nearly did."

In that moment, the automaton had looked entirely _too real_.

He looked, now, intensely relieved, even though a panel was shattered on his arm and some small cogs and screws had scattered on the deck.

"Fine, fine, _fine_ ," Duke said. "I'm not going to... kill someone... for doing their job. We'll ditch it in Callion." He pointed the pistol back at the eye of the lawman. " _If you behave_. Or else I change my mind. Cuffs, now." The automaton took them out, clumsy with his damaged arm. "On you. Quicker! Or I swear I use this anyway, because my _arm_ fucking hurts, and my _neck_ fucking hurts, and I-" He narrowed his eyes at the damage the bullet had done. "I guess you don't have that problem."

The cuffs clicked into place and Duke deflated with relief.

"Throw the keys over here," he ordered.

Audrey snatched them up without needing to be asked.

"And now?" the automaton asked warily.

Duke leaned in to scramble through the officer's pockets, removing the contents. "Over there," he panted, pointing at the back of the deck. "I'll think it over. Don't bother trying to escape over the rail."

"The fall would kill me just as effectively as it would either of you," the automaton pointed out, as he shuffled backwards, keeping his eyes on Duke and the pistol, and added, "I'm not likely to seek that."

Audrey knelt to scrape up the items Duke had tossed on the deck, as well as the little pile of screws, cogs and broken metal from the cop's arm. She held up a wallet. Loose change fell out, Heppa's monetary tokens, and other junk disturbingly like the things you'd find in anyone's pockets. A fucking handkerchief, of all things! Audrey pulled out an ID card. "He has a real name." She looked around, but the automaton had settled himself at the stern, on the low bench there, and with the ever-present noises of the wind and the boat in flight he was probably out of earshot.

"Weird name," Duke commented, falling to his knees next to her, exhausted by the desperate fight. "Wuornos?"

"Nathan," Audrey said. "Detective Wuornos. I _told_ you that you couldn't kill him."

"I wasn't going to-" Duke protested again, then he said, "huh," and picked up another item, a locket with a photograph of an older man on it, grey-haired and grizzled. "Keepsakes...? It's almost like he's human. They must have really moved on with the technology on these things since I lived in Heppa."

"Or the magic."

"Do you... know about magic?" Duke asked, all of a sudden hit by a funny feeling about that question.

"I don't know," she said wryly. "I don't remember."


	2. Chapter 2

**2.**

Audrey was shivering from the harsh breeze and temperature of their altitude as Duke showed her below deck. He displayed once again more sensitivity than she'd expected to find in some privateer airship captain as he said, "Wait here a moment, I need to fetch something," and set her at the door of a cabin full of possessions that was clearly his cabin. Searching in a closet, he pulled out a large coat, long and warm and dark, styled for a woman about her own size. "Someone... left this here, once."

"Someone with good taste." She nodded relieved thanks as she pulled it on. It was soft next to her skin, the quality fine. She'd woken with _nothing_. Even the clothes she was wearing now were stolen. Those she'd first been clad in had been so outlandish compared with what everyone else was wearing that she'd looked for alternative dress fast. It seemed clear that wherever she had come from, it was nothing like Heppa.

"I'll show you to your room, now," Duke said, eyes light and letting her know with a mischievous gleam that if she had any _other_ thoughts about where she wanted to sleep, he was open to it.

"Yes, I'd like to get settled in my room."

His devilish charm and the fact he'd already helped her more than anyone certainly worked in his favour, and there was a familiarity in his presence that drew her - but she'd only just met him, they had some kind of _robot policeman_ chained above deck, and she had been running for days and absolutely did need the time alone to come down from that.

His smile quirked an extra bit and he made an elaborate flourish at a door down the corridor. She set her hand to the handle and pushed inside. It was small, bare, basic, and the safety and privacy it offered almost moved her to tears of relief.

" _Thank you_ ," she said heavily, and squeezed his arm.

"The shower and lavatory are there." He pointed to another door. "There's a small boiler to stoke up, but I still can't promise the water will exactly be 'hot'. I'll leave you to it, and go make sure Tin Man is secure. And actually really-really-definitely check the boat for damage, this time."

He turned and left, rubbing his arm where Detective Nathan Wuornos had applied his crushing grip.

Audrey had never heard of such a thing as automated policemen before. No, she was certain she didn't belong on Heppa, where everything seemed so wondrous and alien, and even frightening. Airships? She was sure she'd had somewhat of a notion of what one was, but giant gasbags hanging above the city by the thousand? The wooden vessel of Duke's _Cape Rouge_ , styled like a pirate galleon strung elegantly beneath vast, sculpted airbags? The rest, in all their shapes and sizes, from tiny ones to great passenger carriers? She might have known what these vessels were, but they were not a familiar sight.

There was a mirror affixed to the wall above a set of drawers at the end of her narrow bunk. That, and a shelf by the bed, and a row of hooks on the wall in place of any kind of closet. The strip of space next to the bed was about the same size as the bed, and that was all there was of a cabin.

Audrey winced at the sight of her hair in the mirror. She ran her fingers through it, tugging the knots clear, until she hit the spot at her hairline that caused a spike of pain. She shifted the blonde strands until she could study the livid red and black marks of the healing wound on her scalp.

 _This_ had done the damage. This was why she couldn't remember who she was, where she ought to be. She glared it it angrily, willing the memories to come back to her, but to no avail.

She was too restless to shower, though she no doubt needed it, and the knowledge she'd have to get back into the same grubby clothes was a deterrent. Perhaps, she thought, Duke had other things he'd be willing to lend if she asked. She did not mind borrowing his clothes if they were the only ones available and he was willing, until hers could be cleaned and dried.

She would ask. She was also uncertain of leaving him with the clockwork policeman for any length of time. It struck her as a recipe for trouble.

It figured that now she had the space and opportunity to relax, she was too keyed up to do so. She made herself take ten minutes, used the facilities and splashed water on her face, then went back above deck clutching her new coat around herself against the winds and cold. Sure enough, she heard Duke arguing with the police automaton before she drew within sight of them, over by the steering controls.

"- _stay put_ , not go wandering around, not _screw about_ with my damn boat!"

"I didn't touch anything," the wooden-faced cop retorted. "I was only looking. We are too far from Heppa and too high up for me to attempt any takeover of a vessel which I don't understand."

"Like I'm going to believe-!"

"I've never been on an airship before. I was curious." The flat gaze slid past Duke's shoulder to mark Audrey's approach. "Miss Parker."

Something about that struck a chord deep inside her and she found herself saying, "Parker. Just Parker."

Duke swung around and saw her, bitterness on his lips: "Oh, well at least you're not getting on _first_ name terms with this thing!"

"Don't be like that," she said.

Duke grabbed the cuffs, dragging on them for a moment before he changed his mind - the detective was kind of an immovable object. "All right, then, you _watch_ him. I'm going to do my checks."

His shoulders were stiff and angry as he turned, heading toward the end of the ship that had been nearest the docking tower when they tore away from Heppa. "He really doesn't like robot cops," Audrey observed.

"I'm not a robot." The words were soft but definite, and she and the mechanical man regarded each other. His eyes were strange. Very, very blue, and she knew that they weren't real, but all the same, if she caught them at the right angle, they did not look like coloured glass and a collection of lenses, they looked _human_.

Audrey took a deep breath. "Do you know why they're chasing me?"

His reply was a blank look. He did those exceptionally well. She supposed she could not expect that he would readily give out such information. She would have to try and make some kind of connection with him if she hoped to get anywhere. She still had a fold of her dress that was full of gears and other metal parts and pieces, as well as his other possessions. She drew him to the deck with her as she sank to her knees, spilling the gears from her dress, but taking care to direct them onto the centre of a wide, flat board away from the risk of losing them down the cracks.

"Let me try to fix your arm."

He nodded, shifting on his knees until he was balanced.

He could not roll his torn sleeve up out of the way himself, because of the cuffs, so she did it for him, pulling it through where the fabric was trapped beneath the rings and curling it back. The burnished metal of his arm underneath was finely worked, aping human shape and movement if not appearance. The broken panel on his forearm rocked loosely.

"There are tools under the wheel," he said. "I saw them when I was exploring."

"Wait here." She put a hand on his shoulder as she rose to get them. She _knew_ that his form was meant to mimic a human form, and there was too much bite in the air for living warmth to carry through to the outer layer of anyone's clothing, so why did something still scream out to her that this was a real shoulder beneath her palm?

She came back and perched opposite him again with a few small screwdrivers and pliers. She unscrewed the loose panel and removed it, so it would not get in the way of the delicate work. The detective frowned at the broken part of himself as she lay it on the deck, and she supposed it _was_ a larger chunk of his body than any of the rest, and... quite disturbing, if she thought about it that way.

"How do I do this?" she asked, finding herself looking at a small pile of gears and a host of empty slots with little idea at all what should go where.

The automaton swivelled his head, studying arm and pieces. "Most of it looks dislodged, more than broken. It seems likely that I can regain more functionality if they're replaced. I can guide you." He twisted his cuffed hands slowly, using the undamaged one to point to a loose gear, and then twist around to point to a place in the arm cavity where something was obviously missing. "Here."

"I'm glad that at least you know what you're doing," she said. "I suppose you have to do, um, maintenance."

He didn't say anything to that, but a few moments later he stiffened oddly, with an audible _clank_ in fact, as she set the first gear in place, her fingers brushing against metal.

"What is it?" Audrey asked. "Did I hurt you?"

"Nothing, and no. I do not have nerve receptors. But for a moment, I just..." His mechanical brows shifted in a strange expression of confusion. "For a moment it seemed like that... tingled."

She could see that the reaction continued as she worked, but he held himself as still as he could. She tried to prod him with more questions, but her focus and her queries kept getting caught back up in her intricate task. They were nearly finished by the time Duke came back.

"I really don't see any point in that," he grumbled. "We don't want him more functional, it'll just let him cause more problems."

"He's cuffed. It can't do any harm to repair the damage we did," Audrey said. "If he was human we'd patch him up. You would, wouldn't you?" She stared at him for the answer.

"He's _not_ bleeding out. This isn't going to get infected and kill him if it's left."

"I," the automaton said stiffly, "am a fully registered citizen and possess all the documentation to prove myself human-" He glared at Duke, who'd pressed his lips together then leaned over and pinged his forefinger off the detective's head, making a decidedly non-human sound. "Legally and psychologically," he finished, annoyed, and then his jaw and neck jumped a little as if he swallowed with unease, as if he _could_ do that, and his eyes rolled to unhappily follow the forward motion of the airship. "On Heppa."

"On Heppa," Duke repeated, with a nod and a gently mocking smile. "On _Callion_ , I'm betting you're property. In fact, we can probably make a tidy profit selling your metal ass."

"Duke!" Audrey exclaimed, outraged, as the clockwork detective's jolt of alarm foiled her efforts to put the last gear back in place. "We're not doing that. Besides, won't Heppa want their policeman back?"

"Well, that's a question," Duke said, "since Heppa traditionally isn't very good at the concept of failure."

"I haven't failed yet. On the contrary, I am the only one of my department still positioned to _succeed_."

That declaration made Duke uneasy, which probably wasn't for the best. Audrey ignored their glares passing over her head and determined to finish screwing the panel back into place over the mostly-mended arm. The rest of the gears were too broken and mangled to put back, but perhaps they could find some replacements and fix the arm properly later. The panel had been snapped off at the point where a second screw fixed in, and although she could return the screw and the panel, it would only hold so long as the arm remained still. Any movement at all jerked it free of the half-held screw and set it swinging loose again.

She poked at it with her finger and sighed. "Guys, we need to do something about this. Any ideas?"

"A solvent-" the detective started.

"Bandages," said Duke, brusquely, as if he resented having to make the suggestion. "Easier to undo if you get the parts to finish the job later." They both looked at him and he grunted.

Then he went to dig in the chest under the wheel and tossed a first aid kit at them. "Knock yourselves out."

"Thank you," the police automaton said, although he still said it _somewhat_ sarcastically. It was hard to tell, but Audrey was fairly sure that was him doing sarcasm.

"I'm going to call you Nathan," she decided, "if that's okay."

"Of course, Miss- Parker." He caught and corrected himself, watching her wind white strips of bandaging around his arm to hold the panel in place. "Thank you for your care. Although I am afraid I cannot tell you anything regarding the warrant for your arrest. 'Fugitive' and strict instructions to apprehend are the limits of my information."

She sighed and rolled her head. "I couldn't have left you walking around spilling gears everywhere anyway." She taped off the bandage, still a little frustrated by the declaration. "How's the hand?"

Nathan lay both hands side by side, clinking as he stretched the limits of his cuffs, and moved the fingers in sync. The right was fractionally slower than the left, and the little finger wasn't moving at all. "Much improved," he told her.

Duke was clattering about by the starboard nacelle. Audrey got up from her knees, stamping the numbness out of her legs. She looked down to find Nathan scraping the remaining broken pieces up from the deck and pouring them into his own pocket, but she let him. There seemed nothing there with which he could do any harm, and if he _could_ do harm with a screw or a fragment of metal, he had too many other of those readily available for it to be worth confiscating these.

He climbed to his feet awkwardly, working around his cuffed hands. And it was funny how it seemed to her that the way he moved was exactly like a person; too much like a person; that the level of skill involved in creating him artificially didn't gel with the rest of the technology she had seen here.

Then again, _magic_ existed in this world... somewhere. Although she had the impression it wasn't the kind of thing often seen by the man on the street.

Her head ached dully. A low whirr seemed to gather as she shut her eyes. She blinked them open again. "We're flying in the wind, now?" she asked, calling the question over to the sullen Captain Crocker. "No engines?"

"Yes, why?" Duke asked.

"Because I could have sworn... for a moment... that I heard _engines_."

"I can hear them, too," Nathan said, with a hard, content note to his voice. "They're coming closer."

"Damn it!" Duke rushed to the port side and started hauling tarpaulins off a well-covered bundle by the stubby wing nacelle. Audrey had taken it for a part of the engine, but apparently that was the point of the tarp. When that cover was dragged clear, and a few boxes hauled away that were stacked underneath to hide the shape, it was revealed as a shabby, rudimentary mounted gun.

"Holy shit," said Audrey, "this thing's got _firepower_?"

"More likely to blow us up than anything else," Nathan said, his confident manner switching to concerned. "Mr Crocker - _Duke_ \- if those engine sounds are Heppa's air security, you can _not_ fire on them."

"Oh, what do you know, you tin ground-cop?" Duke growled. "I've fired on them before."

"That's an admission of-"

"Shut up!" Audrey snapped, and raced to the matching tarpaulin by the starboard nacelle. Two shadows of smaller craft were resolving out of the cloud cover. They hadn't zeroed in on them yet, but they were searching, and it could only be a matter of moments. After the race to be prepared for the attack, though, she was frozen in her tracks when the nearest craft loomed close enough for her to see what it actually was.

 _Biplane_ , flitted through her thoughts. _Early 20th century. Impossible_...

It was a memory that didn't belong here, but she had no time to examine it. "Can we switch all the engines on and outrun-?"

"Against another airship, we could outrun all day, but not _planes_ ," Duke cut her off. "Our only chance is to fight, and that's a slim enough chance!"

"I'm _not_ going to let you shoot down those planes," Nathan said, making a grab for Duke's improvised gun turret with his cuffed hands.

Duke broke an empty crate over his head, and while he was still staggered, looped around his chest one of the truncated mooring ropes that was already fixed near the side safety rail, pinning his arms down at the elbows. Nathan got up again instantly as Duke scooted backwards to the gun platform, but made a noise of dismay at the discovered he couldn't take more than a few steps and couldn't get within range of Duke and the guns. Nor could he raise his cuffed hands high enough to tackle the rope. He _did_ instantly drop to the deck and start trying to squeeze out of it, letting the tether fixed onto the rail drag it by fractions higher up his shoulders, gaining a bit more mobility with his arms.

Duke fired a few shots. Audrey discovered she hadn't a clue how to load the weapon and ran back to Duke's side of the boat to observe him.

The planes were far faster and more agile than the airship, and as she was running to Duke, one of them came in between the _Cape Rouge's_ gondola and the airbags, somehow avoiding all of the joining ropes in its strafing run. " _Duke_!" Audrey screamed, even as he spun backward, away from the gun mount. His lunge picked her up with him and threw them both down among the only shelter available, the storage boxes by the steering.

His weight flattened her and she could hear her heart frantically beating as shots rattled around them. She could just see Nathan's stunned face as he held himself quite still, pinned down amid the barrage.

Then the plane had passed over their heads. "Up! Up!" Duke panted. "Are you hit?" He was brushing his hands over himself and looking down as if he couldn't quite believe he'd escaped unscathed.

"No," she said, "and neither are you. Nathan, are you hit?" She ran to the gun, the one Duke had hopefully loaded already, hoping to stop another run like that. Duke got the idea and went to the other.

The clockwork detective had given up trying to slip the rope and had hunched next to the rail instead, seeking shelter from the shots and making himself a smaller target. "No. Somehow, I'm not. They were trying to kill us! Heppa security has no reason to-"

"Were they Heppa security?" Duke asked. The second plane was coming in. Audrey tried to line the gun up. _Marksmanship_ she could do. Like shooting clay pigeons, she thought, dizzily, not sure what _clay pigeons_ were. But this weapon was clumsy and antiquated.

"I don't know!" Nathan yelled back to Duke. "Rigid aircraft like that are still experimental in Heppa's security forces! It would be science division, not a working - I didn't see any identification!"

They were unmarked. Audrey was getting an alarmingly good look.

She fired. The second plane was too close, still coming, and her shots ran out too soon. Their cover of before seemed a _long_ way away.

"Down here!" yelled Nathan, gesturing as best he could with his pinned arms.

She threw herself his way instead. He dug his fingers into her dress, yanking her close, and bent his body over her to cover the angle of the shots. She heard at least one metallic _ping_ as the plane passed overhead, but didn't feel any bullets hit.

"Why don't they shoot the airbags?" Audrey asked, as they straightened up. Nathan was moving okay. She worked her trembling fingers on the knots Duke had tied, certain he was not going to fight them over this _now_.

"I don't know," Nathan said. "If they want you dead, which seems a certainty-"

Duke was back at the second gun mount and shooting the tail of the retreating plane, but there was already an extra smoke trail emanating from it, and it was losing height. He turned back to them both. "The airbags have compartments. We'd lose altitude before we crashed. They don't want to down us or risk losing us in the cloud layer below. They just want us dead." He glared at Nathan. "Good enough for you now, Tin Man?"

"I thought they were Heppa's," Nathan said crossly. "Who would have no reason to use deadly force. Get me out of these cuffs and I can help. All our lives are in danger now."

"Uh, no," Duke said. "She already let you off your leash. You can help with the cuffs on. You can man one of those just like you are." He pointed to a gun mount. "And you're a lot more bullet proof than either of us."

"That isn't fair," Audrey said, and remembered something, her stomach turning over nastily. "Hey... Nathan. You were hit. Where were you hit?" She patted down his back, and found a bullet hole in his pants over his thigh, but there was only a small dent in the metal there. "You're okay," she told him, getting up from her knees.

"Listen." Duke held up a finger. "The first plane's coming back around."

Nathan went wordlessly to the indicated gun.

"Can you man this?" Duke asked Audrey, pointing at the other. "I'm going to try to drop us, get us lost in the cloud cover. The clouds are thick below. If I can release enough gas quickly... Maybe we'll manage to slip them."

"Reload it for me," Audrey said.

"Good job before, by the way," he told her, as he started to do that.

She watched him. She thought she could repeat the action on her own, if she needed to. Then he was dashing away from her and she was listening for the sounds of a plane she couldn't see. She risked a glance at Nathan, but he was listening too, his eyes tracking the clouds. She didn't speak to him, but she felt unaccountably close to him, working in tandem like this, like the partnership between them _fit_.

It was also true that she did not feel like she'd met Duke Crocker only today, in a seedy bar, in a transaction that didn't exactly inspire trust.

They waited, ready, on-edge, but the humm of the remaining biplane faded and then disappeared. Duke stepped back from the controls. There had been no sudden drop to indicate the proposed release of air. Instead, he breathed out a long sigh of his own and said, "They must have gone after their buddy. We lucked out."

Audrey felt tentative and twitchy about abandoning her post at the gun, and had the urge to keep a paranoid check of the skies. Looking across to Nathan as he lingered on the other side, she could see he felt the same. His body was stiff and straight, cuffed hands hanging awkwardly, showing her the back of his head as his gaze raked the cloud.

Duke said, "I'm thinking we'll get some more altitude instead, now we've got time on our side. It should make it harder for them to find us again. But we might have to huddle below deck and light up the furnace against the cold. I don't have enough fuel on board to do that for long." He eyed Nathan. "If only I had someone who didn't feel the cold who I could trust to keep watch up here."

"I'd turn you over to Heppa security in a second," Nathan said.

"Kind of what I was getting at-"

"-but what I _won't_ do is let unmarked planes and unknown forces unlawfully kill either of you, or all of us. Go below. Get warm. I'll watch for hostile planes."

"Oh my God, just _trust_ him," Audrey said, doffing Duke on the shoulder with the palm of her hand. "He fought with us. He saved my life. Heppa aren't going to come after us in planes, and can't catch up with us in airships. Right?"

"Good luck to them even _finding_ us, now, to be honest." Duke looked over the side, and Audrey took a peep, too. The ground wasn't even visible below. "It'll be dark soon, to boot." He frowned at Nathan. "I'll feel any changes if you start screwing with the controls, okay?"

Nathan wordlessly held out his cuffed hands.

"Not a chance," Duke said.

Audrey fingered the keys in her pocket, but decided not to push it.

They left the automaton wedged in the seat next to the steering, one leg curled up, hands rested between his knees, in the fading light, and descended the steep, rickety wooden steps below. Duke led Audrey into the small galley. "We're not going to Callion anymore. That going to be a problem?"

Audrey didn't know Callion from anywhere else, and had picked it only because it was the closest destination on the map that was out of Heppa. "No, but where are we going?"

"Might make Breinor, maybe Alstan. I'm gonna settle for where the wind takes us first. With a bit of luck, they'll still search for us on route to Callion."

"It doesn't matter where I go," Audrey said. "All I'm doing is running. And you know these places, so pick whichever you think is best."

He nodded. "Don't tell the cop about the change of destination."

She sighed. "He did save my life."

"That's his job. I told you, these guys? By the numbers and then some. Don't let the real hair and painted face and human ID fool you. He's a machine, he'll act like a machine. You can bond with him all you want, and he'll still drag you back to Heppa security soon as he has the chance."

"I'm not sure that's true." Audrey shivered, and hugged her arms around herself, pulling the thick coat closer.

"You're freezing. Shit, _I'm_ freezing. We need to get the stove on. I'll cook something, too."

That hadn't been why she'd shivered, but she nodded gratefully. Duke heated a cup of cocoa and pressed it into her cold hands, then started preparing something that smelled like _food_. Real food. After living off the fast food joints on Heppa's skyport towers, where it was easy to hide, Audrey's stomach growled at the provocation and she moaned along with it.

They'd eaten and she was drowsing in her seat, tired and warm and no longer feeling hollow from hunger, when heavy steps sounded, descending into the ship, and a few moments later Nathan pushed his head around the door. His clothes were damp and his hair and face sparkled with moisture droplets in the lamplight. The porthole windows onto the sky outside were darkened now, and Audrey hadn't noticed the rain.

"What is it?" Duke asked abrasively. "We didn't save any for you."

Nathan eyed the scraped-empty plates. "That would be pointless."

"Oil's in the lockbox with everything else."

The clockwork cop cleared his throat awkwardly, an artificial gesture if ever there was one. "It's a... request along those lines. I need someone to wind my mechanism."

"Now there's a proposition," Duke said, nodding cheekily to Audrey where she perched at the table.

"No, I - I - I-" the machine actually _stammered_. If he could have, he would surely have blushed. "While my wrists are affixed together like this, I cannot reach to wind the ports in my neck, or my arms. Without the former, I will very shortly lose consciousness..." He hesitated before adding, with a special glare of criticism just for Duke, "shut down."

"Sounds good to me." Duke toasted him with his second cup of cocoa.

Nathan stubbornly held out his wrists. "One problem or the other needs to be solved." He looked at Audrey. "Please."

"You're _kidding_ me?" Duke rolled his eyes as she got up. "Don't unfasten his arms. And for that matter, don't _wind_ his arms. We've a lot less to be nervous about if he can't try any tricks."

"I don't agree," Audrey said, "but we can _both_ agree that we're not going to take any chances with his brain." She frowned at Duke until he gave a weary nod.

She moved behind the mechanical man, uncertain what she was looking for. "What do I do?"

"Here." Awkwardly twisting his hands around the restricting chain, the automaton peeled from the inside of his wrist a small but sturdy key, with a butterfly-shaped handle tapering down to an asymmetrically shaped point. His fingers seemed clumsier than earlier, less mobile. She wasn't sure if that was down to the water and chill outside, or his resources running low. "There is a slot midway between my shoulders. Turn the key clockwise until it stops." He added, "There are similar slots above the joints of my elbows." It was obvious that he would not be able to reach those, at present.

"Don't push it," Duke said, though he'd straightened up and was watching with a keen curiosity.

Fingering the elegant lines of the key in her hand, Audrey carefully pulled back the starched shirt collar and found a small hole that matched the end of the key. It slid into place with a _click_ , and Nathan's head jerked a fraction.

"Did I hurt you?" she asked, concerned.

"No," he replied, but there was an oddness in his tone.

The key made a grinding noise as she slowly turned it until it stopped and would turn no further. She took it out and gently rearranged his collar.

"If you don't wind up my arms," he pointed out, "I will no longer be able to maintain the rest of my limbs, to wind the ports in my legs and lower back, that I can still reach."

"Good," Duke said. "Go sit up there again, by the klaxon, and if you don't move, you'll conserve what motion you have left in case anything happens."

Nathan gave him a sullen look. "I don't see why I should help you at all."

"Well, they came damn near to filling _you_ full of bullets, too."

"Stop being petty." Audrey cast a dubious look between the two of them, then made for the automaton's right arm, the damaged one. "We'll compromise." There was a slit in the sleeve tailored to look like a pocket, but it folded back to reveal another port, for ease of access. She put the key in and wound again. The automaton nodded gratefully as she finished and handed the key back. She wanted to wind the other arm, but Duke already looked pissed, and she owed him a lot, too.

"How many places do you have to wind?" she asked. "And why not just one big key for everything?"

"I am a complex mechanism," he responded, "and the motors for my limbs, body and brain functions are linked but powered independently by six major torsion springs. I can replicate almost any human movement this way. Were all the movement to come from the same source, the overall mechanism would have to be simplified."

" _Any_ human movement?" Duke picked up. He waggled a finger downward. "You got a special slot that winds that up, too?"

The automaton looked very annoyed, but did nothing that suggested an answer one way or the other, although Audrey supposed there would be no reason to make police automata with any sort of sexual function... or they would have to be being made for other reasons entirely. "I shall return to my post above deck," he said, and left.

Audrey was tired, and her head ached, and this rivalry was bullshit. "You shouldn't treat him like that," she said baldly to Duke. "Maybe he's not what you think."

His return expression was dour and unapologetic. "Well, excuse me, but I spent half my life at the mercy of his kind, growing up in Heppa. It was hard enough to work around the cops and all their regulations _before_ they started introducing those perfect unbendable drones in their masses."

"I really don't think that's true for this guy. Have you ever seen one pissed off before? Because he was furious, and _hurt_ ," she added, reinforcing the point.

"No," Duke said slowly. "No, I've not seen that. And considering how hard I've _tried_ to piss them off, maybe that is a bit surprising."


	3. Chapter 3

**3.**

Nathan let his annoyance get the better of him and clunked about channeling his frustration against the handcuffs for a while. But he could not catch them on the rail and pull them off, even over his damaged hand, and the act of picking a lock required the finesse of human touch. The array of tools available on Duke Crocker's airship taunted him, but he lacked the fine motor skills and joint mobility to attempt engaging them while his hands were tethered, one damaged and the other winding down. In the end, he was forced to give up on his freedom and pay attention to the duty assigned to him. After all, he did not want to be destroyed if the unmarked planes returned, any more than airship captain and fugitive did.

A shared goal - negative goal - did not stop the situation being frustrating in the extreme. His police duties were supposed to take precedence. On the other hand, he had been created for rational decision making, and there was no point asserting potentially deadly force to capture the airship when he couldn't return it to Command in the absence of Crocker's cooperation _anyway_.

The night rolled by above, and the clouds, shifting and dense, grey like creatures in the darkness, were something to behold this high up. Nathan had never really _flown_ before. He'd seen these great vehicles sidling through the sky every day of his existence as a matter of routine. He'd issued _parking tickets_ for them, but he'd barely ever set a foot aboard.

They were heading far out of the range of life as he had known it, now.

He made another circuit of the deck. Not so much because he thought it was necessary to check the perimeter and stare off the sides in a search for obstruction or threat, but because it enthralled him to do so. Garland Wuornos, his human mentor on the force - his 'father' in Heppa law, subsequently, since he'd gifted Nathan his surname - had always said that they didn't _make_ his kind with curiosity in mind, that it was a malfunction. Nathan had never been sure how to take that, but had decided he meant it well.

The rest of his automated brethren would have shot Crocker, or crushed his larynx in the first instance, and taken Audrey back, of that he was sure. Back there, they had been close enough for the tower to send someone out in a one-man dirigible, someone who could manoeuvre the greater airship back into dock as Nathan could not. But he did not really think it was _logic_ that had stopped him.

Something else had, and he didn't know what. Some inexplicable caution, when it came to Crocker. A familiarity that lay in the push-and-pull of their exchanges even when those exchanges were bitter arguments.

It was alike to the way that Audrey Parker's touch echoed strangely in him, as though it was something he had felt once before and forgotten. Which was a ridiculous contention, because she could not call life back to metal skin that had never had life, engage a nervous system that had never existed.

But both of them, here and now, made the priorities of the world he knew seem secondary. He had not killed Duke, though the option had been there. It would have been acceptable in the remit of his mission, given the manner the privateer captain was hindering a fugitive's capture and posing a threat to Nathan's person. He had also actively protected the life of Audrey Parker, and while apprehending the target alive and intact was always preferred, there were no specific instructions that named that outcome essential.

Time passed, and Nathan contemplated the stars through a gap in the clouds, as he had through the skylight window of Garland Wuornos' attic room, once, before his human mentor died and he had moved into lodgings owned by the police department, which were small and bland with no such views.

Eventually, the stairs rattled as Crocker ascended from below deck.

"Just checking you're still here." Crocker didn't like him. Crocker was a criminal and therefore by default, Nathan didn't like him back, no matter what strange familiarities stirred in the depths of his mechanical brain.

 _Where would I go?_ Nathan watched, irked, as Duke made all the checks that he had periodically been doing, and then some more of the particular workings of the vessel Nathan lacked any understanding of. "The airship seems to be running efficiently," Nathan prompted.

"Yeah," Duke said, with a trace of reluctance. Maybe the reluctance was just for talking to Nathan. "She seems to have weathered the excitement."

"Where is Miss Parker? Parker," Nathan dared to ask, and then corrected himself.

"Asleep. Exhausted. I'd rather catch up when I know it's safe, and the _Rouge_ is either drifting in a designated safe lane or at port." He eyed Nathan, his face shifting with conflicting thoughts. There were dark patches under his eyes and a bruise in the shape of a mechanical hand on his throat that Nathan was _not_ , in the face of his own damage tally, prepared to feel guilty for. "Do you play cards?"

"Excuse me?"

"Cards. A game, you know? Do you... people... even play games? Are there things you do in your downtime that aren't 'work'? Or do they just work you all the hours of the day? Or stand you in a cupboard to chill?"

That was offensive, and Nathan bristled. "I can play cards." Garland had used to play with his police friends, one night every week. Back then, a decade ago when Nathan was new, there had still been a lot more living officers on Heppa's police force. Nathan had other ways of passing the time, now that Garland was gone and many of the flesh and blood policemen in lower ranking positions had been manoeuvred into retirement as had become Heppa's policy since the automation. "I'm not sure why I should play cards with _you_ ," Nathan added.

"It'll keep me awake." Duke pulled a face. "Should be interesting. I've never played against a machine before."

"I've never played against a crook," Nathan said, holding out his cuffed hands.

Duke frowned at them. "No. Besides, Audrey has the keys and I'm not waking her."

"My left hand has not been functional for the last hour," Nathan said, leaving his arms extended as they were. "Manipulating small squares of paper will require manual dexterity and both hands, if you expect to play with any degree of speed."

"Oh, _fine_ ," Duke grumbled, and Nathan's spirits lifted. He would not be reliant on the goodwill of the fugitives for his continued ability to move, and all that was required in exchange was to thrash the criminal in a simple game. "Don't you start thinking this means I like you."

Duke reached of his own volition for the key Nathan had taken out for Audrey's use earlier, turning Nathan's wrist to peel it from the indentation where it was housed. His fingers moved like someone used to working with machinery, brusque movements without fanfare or fuss. Nathan fought down a truly irrational urge to shiver as Duke slotted the key into the elbow of his undamaged arm and turned it.

Duke was standing very close against his back, one arm curled around him to hold both his hands still with a grip on the cuffs as he worked at Nathan's elbow. It was said that future automata might be able to process tactile information, with sensor gages that would indicate proximity, touch, or degrees of pressure. Nathan lacked such things, except for a trio of very rudimentary pressure sensors in the tips of the first two fingers and thumb of his right hand for delicate work, but his eyes, ears and brain told him that Duke was standing very close, the breath hitching in his sore throat next to Nathan's ear.

He was not used to someone else doing this, that was all this strange feeling was, Nathan told himself. He was not used to having living people so close to him (although yet again, in the back of his mind, some niggling doubt made its protests that the closeness and intimacy he was experiencing really wasn't _unfamiliar_ ).

The key clunked to a halt and Duke withdrew it. Nathan waggled his functional fingers. Duke looked at them dubiously and then dropped the key into his hand, backing off fast. Duke was far more nervous of him than Audrey was. Then again, Duke had earned the marks to prove Nathan was a threat to him. "Good enough?" the privateer asked, belligerently.

"I shall do my best to humiliate you at your chosen game," Nathan reassured him.

"Oh, the _confidence_ ," Duke mocked.

They settled in the galley immediately below the set of steps Duke had come up, at opposite sides of the small dinner table, where Duke Crocker proceeded to be annoyingly adept at cards, with a penchant for moves that didn't always follow in the strictest sense as the most _rational_ move for the circumstance, making him difficult to predict. Nathan had to focus to hold his own.

"It's boring playing without stakes," Duke said after a while. "How about we make it interesting?"

"You already took my money," Nathan said, balefully.

"I can get it," Duke pondered. "I suppose we could strip - it's a bit cold, but since I'm fairly confident it won't be me getting to feel it, and you _can_ 't... Still, not much in it for anyone, either, with nothing underneath there but metal and gears." Grinning, he reached across and, before it was possible to raise bound hands to stop him, slapped Nathan's chest. The resulting _fwupp_ seemed to disappoint by having not the faintest hint of a metallic echo. Packed into that part of Nathan's chest cavity was the complicated array of tonal tubes that enabled him to speak, and the inflating bladder that gave air to his voice.

Nathan caught Duke's wrist as he pulled back, shoving it away harder. "Don't do that." A flinch travelled through the other man, informing him that wrist was still very sore. Nathan uncurled his fingers swiftly, but he had no intention of apologising to a criminal who insisted upon keeping him in restraints, even if the game so far had been moderately civilised.

Duke rubbed at his wrist. "Don't hope that that's going to give you any advantage." A scowl hung between them for a moment. Then Duke said, "Beans," and got up and pulled a large, rattling can from a cupboard. He removed the lid, wincing from the effect of the movement on his wrist, and tipped a pile of dried beans on the table. Nathan blinked at them, not being very learned about food products, but got the idea when Duke slid back into his chair and started separating the pile into two piles, counting the beans out.

"I see." Nathan nodded and scraped the nearest pile toward him, cradled between his cuffed hands.

The game slipped into a sort of easy rhythm, after the initial stages of awkwardness, in a fashion that surprised him. He had not played socially for some time. There was a tendency for the remaining living officers to be rather frosty, even - _especially_ \- to the higher spec automata, as Heppa had rolled out its plans to replace more of them, to the point where Nathan knew he was not welcome among their social gatherings. The interactions of his fellow automata were friendlier, but limited and predictable. Even, somehow, the models who should be equivalent in spec to himself. Garland had been unconventional, so it seemed likely his teacher was responsible.

The familiarity of the back and forth with Duke as they played, he put down to those old games with Garland and his buddies, back when he was a novelty and living and automated policemen could still be friends.

About forty minutes in, with their bean hills still frustratingly equal and Nathan blaming his distraction for that, Duke stood up. "I'm going up to do a check of the boat again, which means so are you. Come on."

His hand twitched, but he didn't this time move in to grab at Nathan. Nathan wordlessly got up, and trailed after him like a clockwork satellite at the planetarium he sometimes visited on his downtime, climbing the ladders awkwardly with his restrained hands bunched doubly around the rungs.

He had questions aplenty about how the airship functioned as he shadowed its owner's checks, but since Duke would only scoff and refuse to give out the information if he showed his interest, Nathan settled for watching closely and did not ask.

He _did_ ask, as he was standing contemplating the thick cloud they had sought out, "Isn't it dangerous to fly like this, unable to detect other vehicles in the sky?" In the darkness, it almost blocked visibility for all but tens of feet around them, and even made it difficult to move on the deck, cluttered as it was with bulky shapes and obstacles.

Duke glared at him in the greenish light of a chemically powered deck lamp. He'd purposely dulled the few deck lights he'd left lit to this level before they went below earlier. "With the police and whoever else is after us, I'll take the chance." He added, sarcastically, "Nice that you're concerned."

"It's reckless," Nathan said. "You could kill us and who knows who else."

"No-one else up here, unless they're as reckless as I am," Duke said, quirking an eyebrow. "What do you care anyway?"

"The safety of the transport ways for citizens is-"

"We're not in Heppa now," Duke said with a rasp of exasperation in his voice. "You can quit the good little toy soldier act. Oh, wait, it's probably in your _programming_ , right?"

"I am not programmed," Nathan said, "Except with mathematical and scientific information about the world to form the base of my intellect. Science has not yet discovered a method to adequately store such varied and subtle patterns of information required for the understanding of people that is necessary to function at the demanding level of my role. My memory is therefore an enspelled reserve, and I was _taught_ how to behave as a police officer."

Duke choked. "That's _really fascinating_." He turned his back rudely to deal with a piece of machinery. A moment later, he turned again, his eyes a bit wild. "Is that true for the-?" He made a gesture next to his own head that Nathan took to mean _the stupid ones_ , and re-interpreted to mean _the regular police automata_.

"Not precisely," Nathan said, annoyed. "I am more complex than they are. Yet they have their own identities and memories, too, and if you're feeling guilty about the manner of discovering your method to dispose of one of our number, then you _should_."

"I'm not _guilty_ ," Duke scowled, but his whole stance had stiffened and gone defensive. "Those damn machines - the lot of you - are a plague in Heppa. All so bent around the letter of the law that you can't give anyone a break, not even the penniless kids on the street who you bust for loitering. I _know_ how you guys deal with the lowest rungs of the regular citizenry. Maybe they don't send you down there, since they've got you all prettied up like that. With your posh clothes and nice manners, I bet you deal with the _upper crust_ on Heppa's societal sewer."

Nathan looked down at his outfit, which the criminal had indicated with a derisive sweep of one hand. It was rumpled and untidy, the shirt torn and suit begrimed from clinging to the side of the vessel earlier, and it had bullet holes in it. His rolled up, torn sleeve above the strip of white bandaging that was holding his arm casing together did not look tidy. There was a smudge of oil on his vest. The ensemble had been expensive, and had involved an unpleasant conversation to persuade a reputable tailor to make the fine fitting adjustments for an automaton. The man had not been best pleased at the kind of advertisement one of Nathan's ilk provided by wearing it. Nathan wasn't best pleased by the state it was now left in.

"My clothes were not provided to me," he said. "I wasn't required to wear a police uniform, only to dress respectably. I chose this."

Duke's eyebrows went up, and Nathan couldn't help but read that as mockery.

"I'm a regular detective," Nathan said. "General crimes division." He frowned and thought about what Duke had said before. "The first models of police automata were more rigid than those today." He made some calculations based on the other man's age. "That would have been twenty to... perhaps twenty-five years ago, if they rolled the prototypes out in your district. You had a regrettable encounter?"

"Tin Man, my whole _life_ has been a series of regrettable encounters with the law." Duke shook his head like he was shaking the thought off. "Don't sweat it." He pulled a face. "Don't take that literally and tell me you don't sweat."

"No." Although such oddities of speech had taken a while to get used to, he'd conquered that obstacle years back. "Of course, even if you did have an encounter with an automated law officer who could not see beyond the rules to the situation and the individuals, that would not excuse any real criminal acts committed-"

"Oh my God." Duke turned away again in disgust. "You say they make you guys 'better' these days, but some things never change. Shut the fuck up. There's no good reason I have to listen to you talking."

Nathan paused on the verge of making the stand that there was nothing the crook could do to _stop_ him talking, but that statement was only temporarily true. While he was dependant on someone else to wind up half of his clockwork functions, it was wiser to exercise caution.

Instead, he trailed behind Duke again through the rest of his check of the boat. Duke was twitchy and kept looking over his shoulder, maintaining a wary distance between himself and Nathan as though Nathan might take the chance to push him overboard. As if having risked his life to save one criminal today, he would pointlessly and maliciously murder another.

The clouds made eerie shadows as they passed through them, and it almost seemed they curled and roiled disturbingly, forming ominous shapes. Nathan had never had this view of the night, surreal and otherworldly enough to cause a hitch in his gears.

"We're all checked," Duke said, hand clinging onto a rope that led up into the mesh of the airbag, coming up from leaning low over the side after a remarkable show of appearing to keep one eye on Nathan throughout the manoeuvre. "We can go back down."

Nathan was silent through the descent, peeved and unsettled by both the situation and the criminal. It felt dangerous to be adrift up here, away from Command and Heppa and everything covered by the fixed data of his life so far. Being with these people was as jarring in some ways as it was strangely _enlivening_ in others. He couldn't help but wonder - as he usually made a point of trying _not to_ \- if one of his living colleagues would have been better suited to handle this.

Below deck once again, they passed a few further hours in oddly companionable, oddly hostile gaming. Initially upon their return, Nathan was thrilled to find his bean pile start to fast outstrip Duke's, and he threw himself into winning as a subtle revenge. Then Duke proved himself quite able to dig in and fight back.

It was abundantly clear the airship captain had no intention of going to sleep and leaving Nathan as the only watchful, wakeful pair of eyes on his vessel. As the night wore on toward the small hours of morning, and onward still, Nathan started morosely fretting for his diminishing bean pile. His spirits rose, though, as Duke had a run of bad luck that left them even again.

An amused throat cleared behind him. Duke's head jerked up from his focus on trying to cheat, looking slightly alarmed to have been caught so engrossed, and Nathan turned more slowly. He was usually good at sensing tiny cues, but he did not know how long Parker had been standing there.

She had her arms folded but her eyes were light. She looked much more alert and alive than the weary woman of earlier. " _This_ is what you've been doing all night?"

"What else?" asked Duke, shiftily. He stumbled as he rose from his chair. His eyes had been drooping distinctly in the last hour. "I'll check up top again, and then-" He stopped, looking dubiously between Parker and Nathan.

"Do that and then get some _sleep_ ," she told him. "I can't watch the airship, but I can watch him. Unless you don't trust me with your haul." She waved at the bean pile.

"We're still drifting through cloud," Duke said. "I'll let you know if anything's changed. Otherwise I'll wake to check things again in an hour." He stumbled out.

Nathan found himself watching the other man's retreating back for a second, before he caught himself and returned his attention to Audrey Parker.

"You look much refreshed," he said, and had to resist an impulse to arrange his face into a smile.

Hers in return was somewhat crooked. "That would be the last two days spent running and hiding from your police."

Nathan opened his mouth, but couldn't muster words, so just got up to hold her chair back for her. He spluttered in outrage, his gears grating, as she used the chance to peek at his cards. "We're starting a new game!"

"Gentleman enough to pull back the chair, but not gentleman enough to fake ignorance and let a lady cheat gracefully, huh?" she asked, with a cheeky challenge that was unlike any tone he could remember hearing from a woman before.

" _Duke_ was cheating," Nathan pointed out. "I'm sure that you are... different."

She leaned in to him as he moved around the table and hissed the reminder, "I'm still wanted by the police, remember?"

"Yes, but. But you don't know why. You have no memory. This could all be a mix-up. Perhaps you're only a witness to a crime. It could be you're wanted in custody for your own protection, if there are others who want to kill you. Enemies powerful enough to have advanced armed airplanes when even the authorities don't-"

"Are you making _excuses_ for a criminal, Mr Regulations?"

Nathan had already gone through all of that with Duke, and had no desire to re-tread the same ground so soon. It wasn't as though his words had convinced Duke. Deciding it was easier to give them the machine they expected, he cast her a neutral look and didn't answer.

She appeared disappointed. Then, as she watched him shuffle the cards, she exclaimed with a scandalized air, "He wound your other arm. For the sake of _cards_ , that _hypocrite_!"

"Yes. I should be good for around twenty-four hours now, depending on how much activity I'm required to undertake." Usually it was something he did every morning and evening. He hadn't really faced the risk of running down before. It was always easy, after all, even when working late or working through the night, to take a few discreet minutes to wind. Far easier to accommodate into a tight schedule than the inconveniences of sleep and the need for sustenance.

"Well, good," Parker said. "For cards? Really." She was displeased with Duke, which made Nathan smugly content.

"Let's play," he told her eagerly. He had been enjoying the game with Duke, despite everything, and his opinion of her was rather better.

"You're _happy_ ," she accused. "You actually _want_ to play."

It didn't make much sense, so Nathan ducked his head, fixed his eyes to the cards, and focused in place of reply.

She huffed at him, as if poised to say something more.

Then, a shout and a loud _slam_ reverberated down from above deck. Both of them jerked to their feet, Nathan's chair falling. "Do you have a weapon?" he asked as they raced for the ladder, and her hand strayed to a lump in her dress as she nodded.

"You go first," Nathan urged. She was already in the lead, and his cuffed hands would slow him down on the ladder.

He could hear Duke yelling like a madman: frantic, urgent. Yelling for _both_ of them, as if their names fit together perfectly on his tongue, and Nathan wasn't sure why he should feel his gears crunch faster for the urgency of the privateer who had almost killed him barely ten hours before. Perhaps it was simply his own experience and training, a crisis response that had become automatic.

Parker disappeared over the lip at the top of the steep steps. The hatch onto the sky showed an orange haze behind the clouds, an unusually high-up perspective on the dawn. Nathan hauled himself the last few steps with guilty speed because he did not _like_ it that Parker had gone beyond his sight. She was armed, but there were too many unpleasant possibilities for what could be happening out there.

The dawn provided an eerie glow. Everything was reduced to grey and black shadows superimposed over that orange blur. Nathan saw people-shapes moving among the shadows: more than _two_ and none wearing the distinctive outline of a dress. Someone tried to strike him from behind as he scrambled upright, but the blow only reverberated off the side of his head and did nothing to jar his mechanisms, this time. It did, however, ring out unmistakably metallic.

"Aut'n!" a voice behind him shouted, as he spun to face his attacker, a large man wielding a length of iron pole. "We've got an aut'n!"

"Then we're in the money even if we can't sell this heap of junk!" a voice replied from deeper in the shadows. "Secure it!"

The fellow didn't respond, except for the "Glurk!" sound he made as Nathan slammed him with both cuffed fists and he fell like a stone. The idea of being _sold_ made Nathan unhesitantly vicious. It seemed Crocker's words about his value outside of Heppa had been correct. Nathan had no intention of letting anyone reduce him to parts, or worse, some kind of slave.

"Duke!" he yelled into the gloom. "Parker!" His voice choked as he _looked up_.

Above the airship, coiled beyond the floating airbags, _another_ airship had latched on. This one wasn't styled like a sailing boat, more a heap of salvaged parts strung together by tape and crossed fingers, by the look of things, but it was all too clear what it represented. Ropes hitched it onto the _Rouge_ and ropes coiled down to let more shadowy figures arc down to the _Rouge_ ' _s_ deck. One came down as Nathan watched, shadow arm rising to level a gun.

Nathan averted his head and ran at the figure as it touched deck. The shot staggered his forward progress, but no more than that. He struck the newcomer with the club of his joined fists, and took the gun from him.

He was armed. Now he needed to find Audrey Parker and gain his freedom from the restraints so he could fight...

"What's going on, Duke? What _is_ this?" He still could not see her, but her voice carrying from out of the gloom was infinitely reassuring, even when it sounded out of breath and confused.

"Sky pirates." Hearing Duke's voice, responding with the huff of exertion that suggested he was mid-fight, was oddly also reassuring - though his declaration was not. "We're being attacked by sky pirates!"


	4. Chapter 4

**4.**

Audrey choked at Duke's declaration. Even amid what was clearly a dire situation, the name _sky pirates_ sounded so ridiculous. She gave the pirate she'd taken down an extra kick for good measure before she stripped him of his weapons. He'd grabbed her from behind and hauled her away from the hatch before she could even make a sound to alert Nathan. It was her luck and the pirate's idiocy that he'd seen her skirts in the dark and chosen to grab and grope, rather than smack her on the head as the one behind him had tried so unsuccessfully with Nathan.

The clockwork lawman had disposed of two of their attackers with ease, and it had proved a highly satisfying sight. Audrey reflected that they were fortunate to have been able to force his cooperation, and more fortunate that he was willing to fight _with_ them, now.

She could only hear Duke, but it certainly sounded like he was also holding his own.

She aimed the stolen gun at a figure coming up behind Nathan. Lack of height and hair ruled out any possibility it was Duke. Nathan spun as the shot sounded, saw the figure fall, and followed the sound of the shot back to find Audrey. She hurried to him.

"Parker! Thank goodness! Are you all right?!"

"More so than you. Where did that bullet hit?" She scrambled for the keys to his handcuffs in the folds of her dress, fumbling and failing to find them at first in her haste.

"Bounced off my chestplates, I think," he said ruefully. She thought that he was mourning over the damage to his vest more than anything else.

"Give me your hands." Hers trembled as the found the release for the cuffs and unlocked him. "There! Now you have what you wanted... The only problem is, you have to help us fight off a ship of _pirates_ to earn it."

He looked perplexed by her attitude. "It's a regrettable truth that pirates are plentiful in the skies. Goods shipping and ransoms from passenger vessels offer a tempting haul for those who want to pursue the foul business."

"Yes, yes," she said impatiently. "More of them are coming!" Cuffs and keys hit the deck as they both turned defensively to face opposite directions.

"We need to get to Duke," Nathan said.

She was a little surprised that he should be the one to say it.

A voice came out of the haze. "We need to cut the ropes hitching their damn _carbuncle_ to the _Rouge_!"

Most of the invaders' rope grapples were attached to the rope web encasing the airbags far above. The best person to cut them loose was undoubtedly Duke, who was used to climbing about in mid-air with an immense drop beneath him. But Duke was clearly busy.

"One of us needs to do it while the other covers from below," Audrey said, uncertainly staring up at the task.

"I'll climb," Nathan offered. "You are a fine shot."

"So are you, and-" His hand was broken, and he was much _heavier_ than she was, and... There was not time to argue. He had, now she remembered, clung doggedly to the side of their vessel to make it into the skies in the first place, while she could make no such claim. "All right." She had taken a knife from the pirate who'd attacked her, and she pressed it into Nathan's hand now.

"There are ropes down here, too, though not so many. They'll need to come loose..."

"I'll manage." Another unconscious body lay only feet away, and if _he_ didn't have a knife, well, she'd just have to put down more of their attackers to loot from. She fell to her knees next to the downed pirate, searching him, while Nathan ran to the dangling rope ladder to access the airbags. She couldn't help but think he looked ungainly, swaying on the fragile ladder as he climbed. The fall to the deck probably wouldn't wreck him, but the sides of the airbag far overshadowed the gondola and he'd be over empty sky up there.

"Good luck!" As she called up, Audrey could hear Duke swearing, but whether that was at the thought of the clockwork policeman loose aloft on his precious airship, or some grievance with a pirate, she couldn't be sure.

She set about working her way around to find Duke while trying to keep Nathan in sight. She did not have an unlimited supply of bullets, but she collected two more pistols and a smattering of ammo, as well as the knife she needed, from obliging thugs. The haul weighed down the side of her dress as she picked her way across the deck.

She spied a rope grapple lodged near her and hacked at it. A figure in the haze saw her and let out a cry, but she bested him in speed as she swapped knife for pistol and fired.

With visibility so poor, it was frustratingly hard to tell what numbers they were dealing with. Then again, had she known there were so many at the start, surrender might have seemed the only option. A yell drew her attention back up to Nathan, where he was using one arm to shield his face against attack from above. Audrey had to lean out over the side rail to catch sight of the attacker, and lean further still to take aim... He was shooting at Nathan not from the upper reaches of the _Cape Rouge_ , but from the pirate vessel tethered above them.

A cry rang out from one of the pirates already aboard, and the airship shuddered and jolted, even as a body fell past Audrey. One end of the ship above them seemed to veer from the web of grapples. Nathan must have hacked free a crucial line.

It seemed to Audrey that they _had_ to have dealt with at least half of the boarders, if only because the pirate vessel looked no bigger than the _Cape Rouge_ and could not possibly carry many more.

They were wary of her now, and the ones remaining had seen and marked her position. She found herself forced to duck behind cover, struggling to return a straight shot, and barely managing to protect herself, let alone Nathan's efforts above. She saw Duke make a skidding run over the deck and slide down behind the wheel. He had blood on his arm and a stark expression on his face. He did a double-take as he spotted her watching him, and then held up three fingers.

One of the remaining three enemy scampered back up the ropes, but he chose to do it around the far side of the airbag, where he was quickly blocked from Audrey's sights. She hoped he wasn't going to make things difficult for Nathan, because there was nothing she could do about it. She couldn't see Nathan right now, either.

Audrey hadn't the ammunition for indiscriminate shooting. She queried Duke's ammunition status by use of hand signals and a weird kind of interpretive dance and concluded his position to be the same.

The airship lurched as another rope gave way. Duke took the opportunity to bob up from cover and deliver a few shots, more used to coping with the movements of a vehicle in flight.

A figure bounced off the airbag above and out into open sky.

Audrey's heart lodged in her mouth. _It's not Nathan_ , she told herself. _It's not_... But her eyes searching for proof otherwise found only confirmation in the form of his shirt, vest and suit pants as the falling figure gained closer definition.

Then the fall was caught, jarringly, and his downward and outward movement changed direction. Nathan was still clinging to a line, and as she watched, he swung _in_ , aiming for the body of the ship. He let go the rope... to Audrey's horrified eyes it was way too soon, but his body curved around to hit the deck and then bounced onward in a violent, out-of-control landing that noisily slammed metal limbs against wood... and it seemed he was heading too fast by far toward the opposite edge of the deck.

"Cover me!" Audrey broke her paralysis and was up and running even as Nathan's body crashed through a rail and tipped over into the empty sky once again. She could not see how she could get to him in time. No reprieve, no new miracle... Then she saw his hand snake back up and clamp onto the intact section of the rail next to the one he'd broken. She had no attention for the remaining pirates, or for how Duke was faring trying to cover her mad dash. She fell to her knees at the edge of the deck, wrapping her hand around the rail above Nathan's, reaching the other down for him.

"Parker," he said, looking surprised at her panic - but he looked surprised and shell-shocked in general after the aerial acrobatics. "I'm okay. I managed to keep hold of the rope. Don't worry, I can climb back up."

Audrey coughed a weak laugh. "I'm pretty sure they don't design you guys to fly."

She clutched his arm and hauled as he made to pull himself up. He was too heavy for her to be much help to him, but she had to do what she could, while he was aided by the iron grip that had given them so much trouble when he was an enemy. Hearing him clank and groan as he pulled himself up, she was not convinced his metal body was entirely sound. Almost back on board, he flopped like a seal on the wooden deck, trying to angle his limbs to pick himself up.

The whole airship shook and shuddered and Audrey looked up to see that they were breaking away from the pirate vessel. Nathan might not have finished the job, but he'd done enough that the remaining anchoring ropes were dragging loose and snapping free, not sufficient on their own. They were doing damage to the airbag above while they did, though, and Audrey _saw_ the moment when a section of the airbag burst, neatly illustrating Duke's assertion of how they were compartmentalized. With her attention focused upwards, she failed to adequately brace herself in time as they dropped. She realised her peril and flailed for a better hand hold, but the pirate vessel, which had continued to be dragged with them, initially slowing the descent, abruptly tore free. As they lost altitude again without its extra buoyancy, Audrey was unable to save herself from pitching over the side almost head first.

A searing hard band closed around her wrist and she swung inward instead of plummetting down, hitting the wooden frame of the ship with dizzying force. But between the dizziness and the pain, she knew that she was _not falling_ , and looked up dazedly into the worried face of the clockwork policeman. The hand she had so carefully repaired was now gripped tightly around her trailing wrist.

"I've got you," Nathan said.

Audrey could see, surreally, above them, two of the pirates attached to trailing lines, swinging in the sky as they tried to climb back to their own vessel. They must have grabbed the lines before the airships broke apart. Audrey couldn't imagine they'd finished with the _Cape Rouge_ , leaving all their unconscious and wounded cohorts behind just like that.

"It hurts," she grit.

Nathan's glass eyes went to his hand around her wrist. "I can't risk loosening the grip. I don't have enough fine control."

His other hand was clamped around the rail, supporting his weight and hers. Audrey saw with alarm that the deck was actually _leaning_. He tried to shift, to pull her up again, and they only slid further down.

Duke was stumbling and picking his way across the leaning deck, pale, drawn and bloody but still on his feet, which proved he definitely had better legs for this than they. "Are you both hanging on tight there?" He yelled. "Because you need to hang _tighter_ for a minute! I need to get this!"

He made it to the controls. For a few minutes, everything jarred and wrenched and threw them around while they clung in place. Duke manoeuvred the _Cape Rouge_ away from the pirate vessel's correcting path and did something that equalized the level of the deck, then slammed the engines on. Once all of that was accomplished, from Audrey's perspective seeming like he was honest-to-god _trying_ to throw them off, he staggered to their aid.

Clinging to the nearest intact rail at the other side of the splintered gap cut by Nathan's headlong plunge, Duke leaned out to take Audrey's free hand. The two men pulled her up between them.

"We lost one of the pirates overboard when the deck tipped, I think," Duke said, his face set with a sort of horror that said he wasn't so at home with killing as he'd allowed her to take the impression he was. Not men of flesh and blood, rather than mechanical ones. "At least one."

He fussed over her, helping her up, feeling her wrist and elbow with his warm, living hands, testing the bruised limb and looking for worse injury. He cast a distrustful look to Nathan, who was picking himself up and straightening out his limbs alone. The clockwork man made more noise than before when he walked, but as he took a few staggering steps, his joints seemed to ease out the difficulties they were having and he _could_ walk.

Duke didn't say anything, opting to ignore the policeman's freed status among them for now.

The _Cape Rouge_ jolted again and Duke cursed, his attention returning to the controls of his airship. "I just vented a compartment in counterbalance and set the rest of the bags to fill to max. We should be flying with all the grace of a stone, but we should be gaining more height now, _not_ losing it."

"Something's wrong with the ship?" Nathan asked.

Duke was checking everything, hands frantically flying over gages and controls. "We don't have the lift we should."

"We're coming down?" Audrey asked, alarmed.

"Are we going to crash?" Nathan asked.

"Shut up and let me think!" Duke growled at both of them. He heaved on the wheel, hauled over new canisters to attach to either end of the gas bags, but his expression stayed grim. Nathan took himself off to check and restrain the pirates left on board. He cuffed one to a rail, and borrowed some rope from the _Rouge_ to tie another's hands. Came back to Audrey from a third wearing an expression of distress.

"I need your nerve endings," he said, "to check for a pulse on this one. I can't hear breathing or a heartbeat."

She went with him, but a few minutes later was standing up shaking her head. "He's dead. I'm sorry." He was one of the ones she had shot, a big man, with a red skull-cap and a neatly trimmed beard covering much of his face.

Nathan nodded tersely and didn't give her any lectures on shooting pirates being against the law.

All this time, Duke had been working, and she couldn't help but be aware that they'd dropped so low they were beneath the clouds and almost in full daylight. Audrey very much did not want to be spotted from the ground by anyone who'd report their position to the police. But maybe they were far enough away from Heppa that it no longer mattered.

Duke looked more flustered and hassled than he had mid-battle. "We're coming down, _still_ , coming down _anyway_ , and I don't understand why."

Audrey looked back up and behind them. The pirate vessel, if that was what she was looking at and not some stray bird, was far distant.

"They're following," Duke said. Audrey didn't know how he could tell that they were even _moving_. "They're sure to mark where we come down. We're going to have to land and ditch out fast."

They'd have to leave his ship behind. Audrey realised that was what he meant. "I'm so sorry."

"Not your fault," he bit off. "Pirates aren't even after you. It was my plan to stay in the cloud." He cast a glare at Nathan, though, as if he somehow considered it Nathan's fault.

"Maybe it will be too much work for them to get your vessel off the ground again before the crash attracts further attention," Nathan suggested. "They'll leave her, you can come back later. Elsewise-" he ventured doggedly into Duke's scoffing scorn. "Elsewise, I can contact Heppa security, report the pirates and have our people pick them up. You're a... semi-legal privateer. It should be possible to petition for the return of your possession. Perhaps." He looked at Audrey and some of his conviction wilted.

"'Perhaps'." Duke looked at Audrey, too, but chose to return attack with, "We're a way out of Heppa jurisdiction, Tin Man."

Audrey felt a little relief, at that.

Nathan shrugged, and his words revoked it. "We have arrangements and treaties with neighbouring city-states, depending exactly where we are." He eyed the landscape over the side. "Though we may be out of _anyone's_ strict jurisdiction, right now."

Audrey looked over the side of the airship and saw only a lot of trees, that were getting steadily closer. In the far distance, she could see open ground, and beyond that, almost beyond sight, the grey and brown angles of a settlement much lower-lying than high-rise Heppa. It didn't look like they were going to stay airborne long enough to make it to clear ground. "Is it bad if we come down in the trees?"

"It's not ideal," Duke said. "I'll aim for just beyond them." He didn't sound too concerned, so she allowed herself to take hope from that. Duke went to the canisters again, and then the engines to crank every last bit of acceleration.

"In order to report the pirates and get Duke's boat back later," Audrey said to Nathan, "You'd have to omit, or even _lie_ about, Duke's part in giving me transport out of Heppa."

"Maybe he didn't know what he was dealing with," Nathan said stiffly.

Possibly it was unfair to poke just there, right after they had only survived by working together.

Duke stumbled past. The deck started wildly rocking, for no reason Audrey could see. "I need to check navigation charts for what town that is." Duke seemed almost enraged. "I don't _know_ it, and I _should_... Which means I don't know where we are, and I couldn't tell you how that happened, either!"

Nathan and Audrey exchanged glances. Duke had seemed competent, and she'd trusted him. _Did_ trust him, absolutely, as a man, and she hated the idea she might have been wrong to trust his _skills_.

"I'm sure it's okay," Nathan said. "Wherever it is, I can call Heppa from there. However you feel about me, it's still your best chance of getting back your livelihood."

Duke returned and after a brief hesitation, thrust a bundle of rolled-up paper tubes into Nathan's arms. "I figure you're the one most likely to be able to keep hold of these when we hit dirt."

"H- _hit_?" Nathan repeated, an obvious judder in his works.

"Or not, hopefully, but we _are_ running hot. I'm going to have to get some back-thrust working to slow us down right before we... land. If we hit trees, we hit trees. Trees are still better than smacking dirt at 80mph." Duke shifted his gaze to Audrey. "Find something to hold onto. Once we're at ground level and start to slow, if you see a stable point to jump off, _jump_. I'm hoping she won't strike an obstacle that makes her roll, but it's not ideal terrain."

Then Duke was lost to his adjustments, keeping the _Cape Rouge_ flying and as much control of her as he could exercise as they came down. He turned the engines, and the _kick_ from them sent Audrey tumbling to the deck despite her grip.

Nathan held out his hand from where he'd braced at the other side of the shallow steering cab. He had one arm locked solidly around a post. The other, he locked around Audrey as she scrambled to join him.

She could see less of their progress from here, facing back toward the skies they'd come from. The pirate airship was barely a dot. She couldn't see the rapidly-approaching ground. The air rushed by her, making it hard to speak, but she wanted the distraction, didn't want to think about crashing into the earth. "Are you damaged?" she gasped at Nathan. "You took an awful fall already!"

"Assessment of that kind would seem premature, at the moment," he murmured. His head moved to the side, blue eyes sparking even brighter in the blue sky and early sunlight. "I'm sorry. If my body was really human, I would be able to provide some kind of shield for you against the impact."

The base of the wooden gondola struck something and they lurched. Audrey knew already that he was all hard edges, but she was rattled around in the circle of his arm as though to underline his point. Splitting and cracking sounds filled the air around them. Then chunks of greenery puffed up around the sides of the ship and she realised they _had_ hit the trees. No jumping out _here_ , she thought wildly.

They lurched again and sank deeper into the tree canopy, momentum and the still-floating airbag driving them along. Debris pattered into the shielding wooden structure of the wheel mount behind them, flying past Audrey's face, and she yelled, "Duke!", abruptly realising that he was far less protected than they were on the other side of that barrier.

Nathan clung tighter to her. "We can't do anything!"

They dropped again with a _thump_ and the air cleared. Audrey dared to raise her head, blinking. A tree-line was receding behind them. They were moving over open land. The airbag, undamaged, still bobbed above their heads, but it seemed to be descending, closing in as they slowed down.

"We should jump," Audrey said.

"Wait a little longer," Nathan suggested. "Let us slow down a bit more."

"I don't want to have to fight my way out from under that, or risk being smothered by it!"

Nathan said. "Wait, _wait_..."

They could not jump together. Metal and not flesh, his body would be more of a hazard to her landing safely than the ground. He let go of her as their progress slowed and urged her toward the side.

Audrey jumped, and the green textures flashed by her eyes, and for a moment it seemed she was upside-down, yanked around helplessly by the air currents and the movement of the boat her feet had left.

The ground hit sooner than she'd expected. She lay dazed a moment, unable to recapture what had brought her to _be_ there, and her head pounded, a splitting ache, and strange images flashed through it that she'd swear almost made sense. She blinked, confused, thinking she had lived this moment before... until she remembered how _before_ her head had ached so much fiercer than the pain which disappeared now to a dull throb, and her cheek had been stuck to a hard, paved surface, and not grass, though the grass seemed to sting almost as hard against her skin.

Then, she remembered that _this time_ , she had not been alone.

Sharp concern pulled her head up, and she looked for Nathan. As she raised herself further, clutching at her dress while its folds caught, she could not even see the boat, only the billowing mass of the airbag. It was still quite full, and drifting easily on the air now that it no longer carried the weight of the wooden gondola underneath.

She gained her feet and only realised as she took the first few staggering steps that she had made it through undamaged. She spotted a figure sprawled in the grass several hundred yards away and ran to him.

Nathan. The vest was unmistakable. He pried himself up on his hands as she slowed. There was a scuff on his face that made him look more unreal, flesh coloured paint scraped off to reveal the wood underneath. He reeled upright, body hanging strangely until he seemed to sort of drag everything together with a loud _clunk_. Audrey found herself at a loss for the breath to ask if he was alright, but he nodded at her, eyes taking in her intact state, and then he turned purposefully and started walking heavily toward the bobbing airbag in the distance. He managed to clank his jaw open after a few steps and waved a hand out to one side. "Split up. If Duke ditched like we did, we increase our chance to spot him by walking apart."

She nodded and cut away from him, stalking across the ground with her eyes keeping a look-out for Duke. A heaviness lurked like a stone in her stomach, thinking back to the force with which the airship had come down. She managed to muster her voice, finally, to yell for him: "Duke!"

A moment later, Nathan's voice rose in echo. They walked apart and together, equally rattled, shaken and silent except for their shared call. Audrey's heart thumped with desperate hope for each patch of new ground that approached, but they didn't find Duke and their calls solicited no reply. Soon they were exactly where Audrey had least wanted to be: in front of the downed _Cape Rouge's_ wooden body, climbing over the furrows the ship's passage had torn into the ground.

A few feet of the wooden keel was buried, but it was still elevated enough they could not see the top of the deck. Audrey called again, yelling into the ship through a hole in the side. Nathan watched worriedly. After waiting a beat for answer, he set his hand nervously to a rope still hanging from the edge of the deck. "I should-"

"Shh!" Audrey said sharply, raising a hand.

The voice she thought she'd heard had come from _in front of them_.

In an instant, they were scrambling over grass scattered with debris. Duke was on his knees, thrown clear, _moving_. They fell either side of him, grasping an arm each, steadying his lunging attempt to rise.

"You're okay!" Audrey exclaimed. "For a moment there-"

"Let's not dwell," Duke said with a shudder. He surveyed them both. "It's pretty amazing we all came out of that intact. You got the maps?" He turned to Nathan, gathering an accusing tone in expectation, because the maps were not visible.

"Yes." Nathan pulled the flattened tubes from inside his shirt. Duke looked annoyed, but unquestionably Nathan had held onto them as asked.

"Good. We need to go." Duke curled his hands around each of their assisting arms. "Those guys won't be far behind and the crash will draw other attention. I still have no idea where we are, but heading _away_ seems a good idea."

His hand felt stuttery upon Audrey's arm, and she was trying to look him over for injuries, but all he wanted to do was hurry, and he was wearing enough clothing layers to make it difficult to see any rips or blood, aside from the bullet wound she already knew about. He did not let go of either of them, keeping himself supported in their centre. Nathan slung his arm around Duke's waist, casting off the pretence of not supporting him as they stumbled together.

"There's a road ahead," Duke mumbled, and squinting, Audrey could just about pick it out, a line between green fields.

"Hopefully we can find a signpost to help place ourselves on the map," she said.

"As far as that distant settlement goes, I'd rather know where I was going before I got there," Nathan put in. Of all of them, it seemed his status depended the most upon _where_ he was in the world.

They were caught unexpectedly mid-step - Duke was jolted from Audrey's grasp and he was yanked away from her. She stumbled and looked back to see Duke had fallen to his knees and Nathan was sort of splayed and rigid but upright, as though he'd slapped up against a pane of glass.

"What is it?" Audrey asked. "What's wrong?"

"Can't move this way," Nathan said. "Something's stopping me." He fell back and made as if to shove forward again, but it was like there was an invisible wall beyond which he couldn't push. His hands stopped and seemed to be held by the air. He pounded his palms against a barrier of nothing.

Duke said, "For a moment there, it felt weird, but I could still move... Then the automaton yanked on me and you let go, and it stopped feeling so much like walking through treacle and just felt like a punch in the face."

"I didn't feel _anything_." Audrey ventured back, her hands feeling the air for whatever was holding Nathan in place, but they only connected with him. As she touched him, he lurched forward as though the problem was gone, then as she pulled back in surprise, he was knocked away from her again.

 _What?_

"There _is_ something here." Duke got up, partially leaning on that invisible wall. He slid his hand along it, following it, and she _could_ see from the reaction of his body, the distribution of his weight and the way his shoulder flattened as he leaned, that there was something tangible he had to be leaning _on_. "It keeps going." Duke stopped and looked back. "I haven't found the end yet."

Audrey retraced her steps again, passing with ease through whatever was giving them the difficulty. "There's _nothing_ here!"

"It's you," Nathan said. "When we touch you, there's still a tangible barrier, but we're able to push through it." He held out his hand to her, pausing to strip his glove off. "Duke-"

Duke returned and took her hand from the other side.

It was remarkably simple to take the few steps required to pull them through.

"Like walking through treacle," Duke said again. "But it's gone now..." His voice finished on an uncertain note, and he looked around in confusion.

"I didn't feel anything, except a bit slower for a mo-" Nathan stopped in his tracks.

Audrey was concerned by what they'd just come through - an invisible wall? What could cause such a thing? Why should it respond differently to her than anyone else? But as the moments ticked by with both Duke and Nathan locked in a strange, sudden silence, she started to get concerned about _them_. With stunned expressions on their faces, they were staring at each other as though seeing each other completely anew.

" _Duke_...? Audrey?!" Nathan, blinking rapidly, turned briefly to her and then back to Duke.

It was true that the incredulous, _fixed_ way Duke's attention was pinned on the clockwork policeman was hard to ignore. He half-whispered, " _Nathan_?", and it was the first time he'd referred to the automaton by name within Audrey's hearing, but he didn't say it like it was the first time he'd said it, and he didn't say it like Nathan was the target of his long-held hate, or even a mere casual acquaintance. Audrey heard layers of history and affection embedded in that name, mixed with current disbelief and horror, and she could not imagine where all those layers had so suddenly sprung from.

Nor could she understand what was going on with Nathan. He looked down at his own body, spreading out his arms to better study them, splaying the metal hand he'd ungloved, flexing the fingers open and closed. The confusion and shock on his face was decidedly unlike anything that ought to be formed by a strictly mechanical expression.

"What's the matter with you both?" Audrey asked.

Both their silent stares turned to her.

A siren of some kind _blipped_ behind them, even as engine noise closed in then quieted and cut out. Audrey spun. On the road, a vehicle had pulled up that was unlike any she had seen in Heppa, yet her brain helpfully filled in the words _patrol car_ with ease.

The driver's side door opened and a man in uniform got out. He stood and stared at them all like he was a latecomer determined to win the competition, a study he mostly kept returning to Nathan. After a long moment, he finally picked up his jaw and set his hands on his hips.

"Now what in the hell are you three doing, loitering in a field in this kind of a sorry state? And... what the hell _are_ you three? Oh, wait, no, don't tell me... You folks are heading back from some sort of a _convention_."


	5. PART 2: Chapter 5

**PART 2**

 **5.**

There'd been plenty of weird Troubles, but nothing had prepared Nathan for this. He looked at his hands again, saw metal and delicate mechanical joints where skin and flesh and bone should be. He didn't _feel_ it, though, and _not-feeling_ it, he felt not much different in himself from how he usually... didn't feel.

"Jesus Christ, Nathan," Duke hissed at him, for the third time now, in the back of the patrol car.

At least he wasn't cuffed again. The officer had sort of 'invited' their co-operation, given that Nathan looked like a machine and Duke was sporting a very obvious bullet scrape on his arm, and Audrey was... wearing a corset. Nathan had thought about taking a stand and stating that as Haven's Chief of Police, he wanted _their_ co-operation, and definitely not a cell or an interview room, but too many questions would result.

Even if he could carry off the 'it's a costume' excuse, he hadn't any proof of his real identity, and trying to contact Haven Police Department for verification wasn't really an option at the moment.

Duke seemed almost to be more shocked by the transformation than Nathan himself was, but Nathan held to the fact that he wasn't recoiling away.

"I'm trying not to think about it," he muttered.

Audrey, on Duke's other side, caught the words and eyed him intently. She kept looking at both of them like she doubted their sanity. It was all the more a blow... more than realising how much they had been changed and how much he, _physically_ , had been changed... to know that the one person they relied upon to keep everything together when a Trouble turned the world upside-down had lost her memory, and all knowledge of how to help them along with it.

Audrey's memory had already been under siege. Now it was _gone_ , who was she? Nathan wondered. She'd taken the name Audrey Parker because she'd found her ID, but without Audrey's specific memories, was she as much Lucy? As much any of the other women who'd come before her? Her profile as she turned back to gaze out of the window at the normal Maine countryside they were passing through looked oddly hopeful, as if she saw more in _this_ world that she recognised than the other one.

That had to have been an extremely confusing situation to wake up to.

Thinking back over their time together in the other world, Nathan decided she must have recognised and trusted both of them on some level, despite her memory loss and their different guises.

"I nearly _killed_ you," Duke said. A small noise made Nathan look down, and discover Duke's fingers curled around his arm. "I thought you were just some lifeless, worthless _machine_."

"I could have killed you, too," Nathan said. He wasn't thrilled, when he thought about it, that he'd been kept prisoner by Duke on the airship. But then, something in him had prevented him from resisting too hard, from fighting with deadly force. "And you didn't. Neither of us did. We both knew on some deeper level that we shouldn't."

"And then there was Audrey. Thank God for Audrey." Duke nodded, though he was still pale. Now they'd stopped moving, running, panicking, Nathan had to wonder how much of the pallor could be attributed to the damage taken in the crash. How badly were they hurt? He'd thought at least that Audrey had landed well, but his own body had taken a severe battering twice over, and he wasn't sure how that would translate back to a form composed of flesh and blood. Duke had taken the brunt of the crash, and they hadn't had chance to assess his injury tally.

"I think I did know," Duke said, "but it was _weird_. It's like I hated you, really hated you. I know I don't like cops, but this _story_ that was pasted over me... It felt so real at the time. It still feels pretty real now."

Nathan nodded. "Yeah."

"It's like remembering double."

It was a good summation. Looking back, Nathan could remember his _human_ childhood, scuffed knees mostly felt rather than unfelt, the unfelt broken bone, and Garland a comforting father turning into a distant one by degrees. But he also had the memories of an automaton assigned to Garland Wuornos to learn his humanity, a distant and respectful relationship. His heart ached - psychosomatic now more than ever.

In the front of the patrol car, the officer made a point of turning up the radio.

"This, though-" Duke covertly rapped his knuckles against Nathan's arm plate. "I mean, what the _fuck_ even? How is this going to work out when the Trouble ends?" His fingers picked at the bandaging over the broken plate. "Is this a broken arm? What about the rest? You were fucking _rattling_ as we crossed the field."

"I'll repair it," Nathan said. "With a toolkit."

Being able to remember both lives at least meant he would be able to repair himself, if he was able to get hold of the tools to do so. Maybe it wouldn't make a difference, but while he was under this Trouble's influence, with a form that _could_ be repaired, he should definitely try. He should have thought to take the tools from the _Cape Rouge_. "Just as big a question for you: we're out of the Trouble's influence. _Why_ am I still like this? If I can remember, why isn't my body normal?"

Duke frowned. "I don't know, but given the state it's in, I'd say just as well it _isn't_. We need to get that toolkit, stat. Maybe it's something to do with Audrey dragging you through, but it could be it needs longer for the reversal to take effect or we're still too close within range. If we're lucky, it's the sort of one-time transformation that holds its own ontological inertia, you're stable as you are, and the Trouble itself will have to be reversed to put you back."

Nathan nodded grimly. "That sounds like a plan, either way." It might not be just his luck to end up like this, he reminded himself. What had happened to his fellow officers? Had Stan and Rafferty, being lower ranked, fared even worse? There _had_ been enough other automata, though, to make him wonder if the rest were originally people at all, or just background detail for this strange world that had been created by the Trouble. There was definitely at least some of that going on, because Haven PD hadn't been that _big_ , and the sprawling city-state of Heppa had a far larger population than Haven.

"Yeah," Duke agreed softly. His dark eyes had gone all warm and liquid, and apparently he was intent on pinning Nathan's gaze, even if that was composed right now of nothing but glass. "We're fixing this. Don't you doubt it."

Out of sight of the officer up front, down in the negligible gap between their adjacent thighs, Duke curled his hand around Nathan's broken metal hand, entwining their fingers.

Audrey was looking at them very oddly.

"What's got into the two of you? One moment you can barely be kept from fighting, and now the whispering and..." Her eyes ticked down to their hands.

Duke and Nathan exchanged glances. Well, this was going to be different. Usually it was up to Audrey to explain the reality of the situation to the two of them. Nathan had no idea how things would work out, this way around.

"It's complicated," Duke said. "We'll explain later." With a jerk of his head toward the officer in the front of the car, he offered out his other hand to Audrey, but she sank back warily and shook her head.

She didn't remember loving them. She had kept them together and kept them from killing each other, but she didn't consciously remember what they all meant to one another, the way Nathan and Duke now did.

Duke sighed, and Nathan squeezed his hand, very careful to keep the pressure light.

This was going to be far too complicated to whisper in bite-sized hints across the back of a patrol car.

Even if the police officer seemed to really like hip hop.

* * *

It was an interview room, and not a cell, and they'd been given coffee. Nathan frowned at his cup and didn't drink. He was fairly sure he _couldn't_ drink, and he'd have to sneak some of his coffee into Duke's cup, out of sight of the camera, once Duke had chance to drink enough himself.

Audrey had been led away by a female officer to find her some real clothes and also, no doubt, to question her about what had happened without himself and Duke around to influence her responses.

"We're not under arrest," Nathan said to the very jittery Duke, keeping his voice low. "They only want to find out what happened to us. When three people-" two _people_ , strictly "-show up looking like this, the police are going to ask questions." If they were any good at being police.

"I know we're not under arrest," Duke shot back. "I am familiar with all kinds of being picked up by the police, at least half of that courtesy of _you_." He gulped his coffee and twitched. Then he leaned in closer. "One phone call, Nathan. I have two IDs I can access _right now_ with cash reserves vrtually on-hand. We can get some decent clothes, check into a hotel and get cleaned up, hire a car, and figure out what the hell we're going to _do_ about this Trouble."

"Put Haven back," Nathan asserted, nodding. "But we need to let this situation play out first, or we'll only risk raising suspicion."

"Audrey needs a hospital," Duke said. "She can't remember. She _always_ remembers. She must have... hit her head like in some crazy amnesia movie thing? Does memory loss really happen like that?"

"I'm pretty sure it's more serious if it happens in real life. The police should make sure she's provided with medical attention..."

"She needs scans. I guess, at least, we know she can _get_ scans," Duke said. " _You_... I don't even know what to say." He spread his hands, indicating Nathan's body.

"Yeah. I know," Nathan said again grimly. "Toolkit."

"Tin Man." As Nathan narrowed his eyes, Duke quickly added, "I swear, that isn't even _funny_. I'm as horrified about this as you. Probably more," he added, reflectively.

"Well, like I said, I'm trying not to think about it, so don't you either."

"Which is such a reasonable reaction it's not _reasonable_ ," Duke emphasized. "Nate, your brain is a _machine_. It's wound up by a key."

Nathan couldn't help but wonder if Duke was right. If he'd be more worried about Audrey, for example, if he had a real body to experience physical anxiety reactions, even if he still wouldn't _feel_ them. Everything seemed... even. _Flat_. Unusually so.

But he only said, "Keep it down," and looked worriedly to where the camera was. They probably weren't actually being watched. This was a small station, smaller than Haven's, and Cawbrook was a much smaller town. If they had a parking violation at the same time as this, they were probably stretched and thus focusing all their attention on Audrey while they left himself and Duke to rattle.

Cawbrook did have a medical centre, if Nathan remembered rightly, so the facilities were there to get Audrey checked out once the immediate problem was sorted. That was if Cawbrook PD didn't drive her there themselves. Duke could probably use some attention, too.

"I have no idea how they are buying the 'costume' explanation for one single second," Duke said.

"Same reason anyone explains any Trouble off as something rational," Nathan muttered. "No-one wants to know."

"Fucking Haven," Duke said. "I wonder if anyone's even noticed the great big invisible _wall_. Around, what, sixty miles of Maine coastline? More? The crazy has really outdone itself this time."

Nathan grimaced and shook his head, having no answer. "It's good that you have resources," he settled for. "Even if they are crooked."

"We'd be _sunk_ without my crooked resources." Duke clanked his cup down and said, "Give me your coffee, appliance boy."

"At least we have a pretty good idea whose Trouble this _is_." Nathan frowned as he handed across the cup. "How we're going to find him and make him stop it is another matter."

"Beating the snot out of him sounds good as a starting point," Duke said darkly. "Though I guess it doesn't have to be him. Could be another of his fantasy-Victoriana obsessed friends."

"Pretty sure it's Malcove." The last time they'd met, the guy had called him a 'rulebook obsessed clockwork drone'. Nathan hadn't _wanted_ to shut down his plans for a damned steampunk convention, even though something being good for tourism was a mixed blessing when the tourists were unknowingly throwing themselves in the path of whatever the Trouble of the moment was. He'd just wanted all the health and safety and public liability documentation in order, which it _hadn't been_. "Called me a tinpot dictator and spat in my face," he added reluctantly, kind of knowing what he was going to get from Duke.

"Well, you could've let it go. I was looking to pick up a decent profit from catering for his damn convention."

"This _isn't_ my fault!" Nathan snapped. "Don't you think the insurance documentation matters, in _Haven_ of all places?"

"Insurance does not cover the _Cape Rouge_ in the middle of a field miles out of Haven, and I do not even know-" He took a deep breath and Nathan could practically hear him internally counting. "Insurance does not cover _this_." He huffed a sigh and placed his hand on Nathan's shoulder. "It's not your fault, Nate."

"I'm sorry about the _Rouge_." Though now that he thought back to it, they'd been _flying in an airship transformed from Duke's boat?_ "It sucks."

"It does suck. But there's no way that frame was light enough to fly based on the laws of physics in the normal world, so it's no wonder it started to come down when it got near the edge of the Trouble's influence."

"There's no way a perfectly functioning clockwork man obeys the laws of normal science, either." Nathan spread his hands again, turning them over, watching the mechanisms of the fingers move. "By that logic, I _shouldn't_ be okay like this. Do you think maybe I'm going to just... stop?"

"What if it's your humanity maintaining it?" Duke suggested. "Like... I don't know. Life force. Soul. Aura. Energy field."

Nathan snorted his opinion of the New Age meander.

"Okay, but I _do_ think that probably the sooner we get back inside the Trouble, the better." Duke's face froze halfway through another gulp of Nathan's coffee and he choked, managing just about to swallow the mouthful down rather than spray. "Wait. What if we forget again?"

"What?" Nathan asked, confused.

"When we go back. What if we're... you know, the airship privateer and the clockwork cop again? Likely, I'd think, even. We didn't remember being ourselves until we broke out of the Trouble. There's no reason to think stepping back in will do anything but put us right back under its influence."

Nathan was very much afraid Duke had the right of it. "It doesn't matter. Audrey remembers. She doesn't remember the real world, but Troubles don't affect her, so no matter what, she'll remember what we tell her now."

"It's going to be a fun conversation," Duke said glumly. "Talk about tables turned. But when she's back to normal, she's going to love it."

"We _might_ remember, anyway," Nathan said, hoping fervently.

The door clicked softly open behind them, and they both turned as the police officer from earlier stuck his head around the door. Nathan took a step back out of Duke's space, and the officer snorted. "You boys don't fret. Got a nephew wired that way, s'okay with me. Partner's a damn good cook. Didn't miss the hand-holding in the car, either."

Nathan and Duke exchanged careful glances. "Uh, thanks," said Duke. "Does this resounding rainbow accolade mean we're free to go?"

"Door was never locked. Just getting the facts from your girl. Sister, huh? Figure you'll want to get checked out at the medical centre all three of you 'fore you go make arrangements to try retrieve your vehicle. Pretty lucky walking away intact from any kind of air crash. I'm still trying to get in touch with the landowners, but you can go. Miss Parker gave me a contact number. Better know where you'll be staying, though."

"Can you recommend somewhere?" Nathan asked, hearing his voice come out rather hoarsely, gears or no gears. He wondered how Audrey had explained the bullet wound in Duke's arm.

"Pickwick Hotel is just a shake up the road, can drop you there after the medical centre."

"Then we'll be there," Duke said, smiling winningly and making an expansive trust-me gesture.

It still always amazed Nathan that that seemed to _work_ on people. He would have snorted, despite the situation, but discovered that didn't work without actual functioning nostrils. It left him oddly dismayed for a moment.

Out in the corridor, Audrey was standing in a clean white T-shirt and blue PD exercise pants, restlessly jogging from foot to foot. Her face cleared a bit when she sighted them both, and she made a false start to dart forward, then caught herself and headed over more soberly.

"Audrey." Nathan held out his hand and she let him take her arm and draw her in. Of the three of them, she did not understand this world in her current state. If she'd said anything out of place...

"I'm okay," she said. She looked at Duke. "They said it was probably hunters who shot at you, at your plane. A few stray bullets. Nobody around here would have intended to shoot us down. But they're going to try find out who it was."

"That's great," Duke said, carefully. He looked at Nathan, the confusion hovering visibly in his eyes. He hushed his voice right down and dared ask, "Audrey, do you _remember_?"

She made a quick shake of her head and slid her eyes to one side. Nathan followed and found a calendar on the wall: airplane pictures. _Yes, they have planes here_. Whatever damage her memory had taken, her mind was still as quick as ever.

Duke huffed out what was left of his breath. "Okay. Can I... make a phone call?" he asked the police officer nervously. Possibly fake nerves, Nathan thought, watching the performance cynically. "You _remember_ I get a phone call, right?"

"You're not under arrest, Duke."

"You can still make the phone call, kid," the officer assured him, with a slap on the shoulder, and pointed at a phone in the corridor. He eyed Nathan critically while Duke went over there. "You going to wear that gear all day?"

"Uh, no," Nathan stuttered. "But it's... glued in place. I should - I should go to the hotel first. To get rid of it. I'd hate to alarm anyone at the hospital."

"Thought you were some kind of an alien robot when I first laid eyes on you," the officer guffawed.

Audrey echoed his laugh, doing better than Nathan, who'd frozen. "Oh, he worked on it for _weeks_. It's such a shame it got all scuffed up in the crash."

"Still, like wearing a suit of armour, right? Might've saved your hide." The officer thumped Nathan's shoulder and did a double-take when the gesture elicited a rather too hollow _clang_ , and his stare picked up a more intent, puzzled cast again.

Duke returned, forehead creased but the set of his mouth satisfied. "I need to make a stop at the bank. Then I can cover the hotel and medical. Okay?"

The officer nodded, too distracted by his unease with Nathan to be much perturbed by the suggestion. "Best get going," he said after a nerve-racking pause. He dragged his eyes and hand away from Nathan's shoulder and whatever he thought he'd felt and seen.

Relieved, Nathan fell in behind Audrey and Duke, as far from the other police officer as possible.

He didn't trust the legality of Duke's resources, but it seemed he had no choice in this instance. Certainly it seemed like _he_ could barely dare to risk showing himself in public, let alone do much to affect their fortunes.


	6. Chapter 6

**6.**

Leaving Nathan at the hotel felt lousy, but it wasn't as if there was a whole lot else they could do. They needed to get him _away_ from the cop and out of public sight. Even if that was a matter of abandoning him to an empty room, to sit and do nothing for however many hours it took to get Audrey's head injury and Duke's own injuries dealt with at the hospital. They absolutely could not risk taking Nathan _there_.

Duke dragged his aching body inside the hotel to sort out the booking and payment at reception, letting Nathan hide behind him and linger in the shadowy parts of the hallway. Then he accompanied Nathan up to the room to make sure he was safely settled, unaccosted by fearful or curious passers-by. He had a cursory glance around the room, then started to back out, until he noticed how Nathan was standing with his gaze nervously fixed on a large mirror on the wall.

"You going to be all right?" Duke asked. Reluctantly, because it was a shitty question to ask when a guy was metal and bolts.

"...Yeah." Nathan tore his eyes from the mirror and went to sit on the bed instead. It creaked, or maybe he did. "Yeah. I am okay."

Duke could tell he was feeling thoroughly useless, at the very least. "It sucks," he emphasized again. "This _sucks_ , and we're going to sort it. For one thing, I do not accept that your ass is going to stay metal forever. Too much of a loss for humanity _and_ for me." He offered a grin, and managed to get a hint of one back.

"Thanks, Duke," Nathan said. "Go take care of Audrey. I'll stay here and stay out of trouble." His face _clunked_ as he frowned. "Get me that toolkit, if you can. Something with fine tuning instruments, like for fixing watches."

Duke pulled a face back at him and fled.

Honestly, it was just as well that it was Nathan. If it was _him_ , he'd be going crazy just thinking. Being self-aware and in that body-

Maybe a good thing Nathan already couldn't feel, too. Duke could only imagine that would have been even weirder.

Duke went back to the car and the cop and his other assailed, amnesiac lover. This was insane. He often felt like he was the only sane person in Haven - and hell, yes, that included Nathan and Audrey - but this put a whole new spin on the phrase 'straight man'.

This was probably how Audrey felt every time a Trouble swallowed up the both of them, in fact.

"He's okay," he reassured the two waiting as he swung into the back of the police car, a ride made no less unnerving by his intimate acquaintance with two cops. "He's fine. He'll clean that crap off and wait for us." He tried not to think about Nathan alone in a hotel room with his weird transformation as the car pulled out, tried not to think about those worst-case-scenarios where innate life and humanity weren't enough and his clockwork form just _stopped_.

Their friendly officer - a lot friendlier than Officer Wuornos, point of fact - dropped them at the medical centre and came inside briefly to establish to the centre's staff that the bullet wound had already been queried by the cops.

Then he was gone, and it was _such_ a relief. Duke waited for about half a minute after his back had disappeared out of the door then collapsed into a waiting room chair. "Oh my _God_ ," he groaned at Audrey, who was still standing. "I have no idea how you did any of that. What is the source of your magical powers, Officer Parker?"

She frowned. "He wanted details. I _have_ details." She dug into her pockets, which Duke _had_ noticed were bulging enough to marr the curves of her ass, and took out-

 _Shit_. Audrey Parker's wallet, bank cards, driving license... proofs of identity, of address... Also a mobile phone. The police badge was missing, but that would probably only have confused matters.

"What do you mean, 'Officer Parker'?" she asked sharply.

"Um." Oops. Duke forced a grin and said. "You might want to sit down. Or you might want to save the big reveal for later, when Nathan's around."

Her breath caught. "You know who I am. I _knew_ that the two of you... that something changed, when we passed through that invisible wall. This place is nothing like where we were before. They have planes but not airships, nor sprawling cities, nor robot policemen... He was real, _living_ , and kind, and he didn't recognise what Nathan was at all." She sat down side-on in the seat next to Duke and seized his arm, leaning in close. "What's _happening_ , Duke? Who am I?"

"That question is actually the most incredibly complicated one you could ask," he said weakly. How the _hell_ was he to-? Damn Nathan for squirreling out of this. "Okay, we'll take the direct explanation. Your name is Audrey Parker. You were an FBI officer who came to Haven and stayed to be a small town cop."

"Haven's a town about sixty miles up the coast," Audrey recalled. "There was a map on the wall in the police station, and talking to Officer Jackson confirmed it. My address in my wallet is _The Grey Gull_ in Haven. But Haven didn't exist until we crossed the wall. I'd asked about it, I'd _investigated_." She frowned. "Why would the police be after me if I'm a cop?"

"That part, I don't know," Duke said. "But you stayed in Haven because... well, we have these things called the Troubles. They're like... really inconvenient personal magical or super powers, that people can't control. And you're immune to them. Which puts you in a _really_ good position to help out."

"I'm immune?" She didn't question the 'magic' part. "That's my power?"

"Yeah, so when... when stuff gets screwed up... when someone decides it's gonna be Christmas in July or that they want to turn the whole town into a horror movie... You're the one who remembers, the one who stays normal and _knows_ that that's not how things are supposed to be. Nathan and I? We get screwed over six ways from Sunday and end up sucking blood or made of spare parts or dressed in a Santa suit in the summer sunshine."

"But I don't remember anything," Audrey said. Her hand rose slowly to her head and the expression on her face flattened out. "I'm supposed to be the one who fixes this?"

Duke nodded, a little off balance because it wasn't where he'd expected her reaction to go.

"Then the people who are trying to kill me must be under the control of whoever _did_ this and doesn't want it fixed," she said, determinedly. "That gives us something to work on."

Duke sighed. Sometimes Audrey and Nathan's work ethic was just depressing, combined or apart. "His name's Woody Malcove. Woodrow Malcove. Nathan pissed him off over health and safety paperwork."

He watched Audrey sit back and push her chin in to her hand and sink into thought.

"So people don't have airships... or high-rise towers, or... I wondered why it all felt so _unfamiliar_. I couldn't remember, but at the same time, some things were familiar and some were so..."

"It must have been confusing." Duke rubbed her arm. She was a bit cool about receiving the gesture and he decided he should probably step back and remember that this Audrey didn't know him intimately. Had only just met him, in fact. "And yeah, we have airships... a few, but not like _those_ airships, and some places have high-rise towers, but not like Heppa's, and Haven doesn't have them at all, and the world is just... it's _different_. That other place is someone's fantasy, but it takes things out of the real world, and out of history, and out of science fiction and pure make-believe as well."

She nodded. "It all makes much more sense now. Thank you." Her attitude was a bit stiff. "You and Nathan are... well, obviously in the real world you're both human, and not a cop and a criminal, and you're lovers. I can see _that_ much."

Duke choked. "Erm. Well, the criminal thing is kind of... And it's not just _Nathan_ and _me_..." His heart did a weird flip-flop in his chest. He wasn't sure at all whether he should try to tell her. He chased the admission desperately: "Look, it's okay if you don't remember, we'll just keep our distance until you _do_ remember, or until it's okay... and if it's not okay, then that's... okay." Though his heart was heavy saying it.

She stared at him for several seconds, clear blue eyes not letting up. "I'm _dating_ a criminal and fraternizing with a fellow officer in some kind of three-way arrangement?"

"Probably better not to dwell on that right now," Duke said hurriedly, because if he were a woman with no memory and the two guys he'd - she'd - been hanging out with made that claim, he was pretty sure it would cross his mind that that was really suspicious.

Audrey shook her head. "Well, I do sort of feel something. Like I know both of you far better than I ought. In the other world, when you didn't know me, it was more obvious because of that disparity. Here, it's - I'm sorry, it's like both of you suddenly know everything, and I know nothing, and I've already had three days of that, but this just cranked it up to a whole new level."

Duke couldn't help but give a snort of hurriedly-suppressed laughter, because that sounded all kinds of familiar to _him_. "Sorry." He'd probably earned that glare. "Sorry, okay? It's just _I so know_ where you're coming from. Nathan and I, usually _we're_ the ones-"

"So you guys are like my sidekicks?"

"Whoa! Who said _sidekick_? Allies and fellow fighters! Nathan's the Chief of Police, I'll have you know."

She smiled rather beatifically and stressed the word, " _Sidekicks_. But neither of you are immune. Obviously..." Her face twisted. "Nathan's in a pretty bad way. For that to happen to a living person-"

Duke see-sawed his hand on the air. "Well, for one, we're kind of used to it, and for another, Nathan can't feel his body. It may be a blessing in this instance. That's his Trouble. That's why he gets all weird about it when you touch him, I guess. Even though he's metal parts, he must still be getting some echo of your immunity."

"It's _all_ weird." Audrey voice carried a rush of... perhaps _relief_ more than anything. "I thought I was going crazy."

"Oh, that's that Haven feeling, for sure," Duke reassured her. "But we're all okay and in one piece, and that means we can-"

She hushed him and stood up sharply. An ER doctor was coming toward them with a clipboard. "Audrey Parker?"

"Yes." She got up and cast a last look back over her shoulder at Duke which was both full of questions and the promise that he was going to answer them later. Duke sagged back in the chair and thought that, overall, it could have gone worse.

He sat there in a daze until he was called in. Balancing two sets of memories was peculiar, and he hoped that walking out of this Trouble while it was still in full flow, still half under its influence, hadn't done anything permanent to him, or to Nathan.

The ER doctors dressed the bullet wound and wanted to do x-rays, particularly of his bruised-black wrist, but he was pretty sure it wasn't broken and since his resources weren't unlimited and he had other things to do besides, he declined. When he came out, Audrey still wasn't finished yet, though. He set about trying to get a bead on where she was or how long things were likely to take. But this wasn't Haven and he hadn't dated half the nurses, and they weren't inclined to be helpful to a scruffy stranger dressed in layers of scuffed and oil-stained clothes, so in the end he left a message for Audrey at the desk and headed out to try his luck at finding the things they needed in the neighbouring shopping street.

There was a garage a stone's throw away where he managed to negotiate hiring a car. In the other direction, where the shops were clustered, he got hold of changes of clothes for himself and Nathan, opting for suits that he figured could pass in either world, though they were going to look dolled up to the nines for Cawbrook. He'd just about abandoned hope of finding anything suitable for Audrey when he spotted a dress in the window of a costume shop that had the right kind of bodice-and-floofiness for Malcove's steampunk world.

He grabbed some other bits and pieces at the hardware and general store, including Nathan's toolkit. He wasn't sure if the implements would be delicate enough, so after a thought, threw some crafting tools into the pile as well.

Then he really had to think about getting back, but made one more stop to grab some ready prepared food - pre-packed sandwiches and salads - and soda. They had to eat at some point today, and it would be kinder and cheaper not to leave Nathan alone in the hotel room again to do that. Duke wasn't sure if the little establishment did room service.

Audrey _still_ wasn't out when he got back, and after going through the rounds of questions once again with the uncooperative staff, he ended up kicking his heels anyway. He was just about going out of his mind by the time she finally appeared.

She looked _annoyed_ , and hassled, and he winced a bit but went to her and prodded for news with heroic resolve.

"They need to wait for the expert to look at the scans," she said. "All they can tell me in the meantime is that my memory could come back all at once in a cascade - the most likely - or else in dribs and drabs over time, or else not at all. They don't think I'm in any other danger from the effects of the head injury, so I guess at least it's good to know I won't collapse from a brain haemorrhage."

Duke winced again. He'd not been thinking of that, but... "Definitely good to know."

"We can go," she said, making it sound more like a disguised, _Let's get out of here as fast as fucking possible_. "They have my cellphone number, but I'm supposed to call in tomorrow."

Duke said, "Then let's split. I got us a car and some food and a bunch of stuff already. We can be back at the hotel in less than ten minutes."

* * *

Duke tapped on the door and called, "Nathan, it's us," before he opened it, but he still found Nathan greeting him from a ready pose by the side of the door. He shook his head and sighed, just unspeakably relieved that Nathan was still ticking.

Nathan's eyes zeroed in on Audrey. "Are you all right? What did the doctors say?"

"They're not sure about the memory loss." She was eying Nathan back more intently than earlier. "So... You're a real person?"

Nathan looked pained and his, "Yes, I am," was a bit sharp.

Duke could see he'd been restless. The top of the bedcovers were disturbed by a few heavy dents, the hard chair at the dresser had been moved, the window had been opened, and the plush chair near the wardrobe looked a bit squashed. There were two paperback books strewn propped open on their pages, one on the bed, one on the plush chair.

Duke leaned down outside the door for his bags of purchases, and brought them inside to ditch on the bed. "I got more clothes for us... Won't be so well tailored as what you're wearing, Nate, but I figure that has a few too many bullet holes to be inconspicuous."

Nathan pulled a face, sort of. "You don't want to know what the alternate me spent to look like this. I wanted to be taken seriously, not taken for a freak."

"Sorry," Duke shrugged, "but a vest and a nice shirt aren't going to help there in any universe."

Nathan's head jerked up and his eyes narrowed, and Duke wanted to kiss him badly, to take the sting of the words away. He'd have done that, or some other affectionate gesture, automatically, before... So he stepped into Nathan's space and set his hands on Nathan's arms and did kiss him, although he made it a peck on the lips because metal and woodpaint taste and a hard texture fought against the illusion of shutting his eyes and pretending.

"Duke," Nathan said, with his surprised, fake, kissed lips. Duke caved and wrapped his arms around him properly in an affectionate embrace. This close up, he could hear clanks and whirrs and a constant clockwork _tick-tick-tick_. Could feel the complicated rhythms racing around inside Nathan vibrate inside his own chest where they were pressed close.

It also felt cold, and hard, and echoing, but he tried to ignore that. He scrubbed a hand through Nathan's hair - at least that was soft - and Nathan very carefully reached up with his gloved metal fingers to touch Duke's face.

"I can't feel like this, either. It's worse than usual, even. Before, I always had some sort of a chemical sense when my body was touched, hurting, happy. Now it's down to function and motion. My fingers have a kind of pressure sensor on the tips, using sliding levers, so I can do fine work, but not very _well_."

"I bet that's not true," Duke said with a sideways grin.

"I'm not risking your body with that kind of experimentation," Nathan said brusquely. "We have to behave until this is sorted out."

"Yeah, I mean, _ow_ ," Duke said quickly. "For the best."

Nathan rolled his eyes and pulled away, his limbs groaning of their own accord as he moved.

Audrey was watching them closely. Duke figured it should be pretty damn clear by now that the part about he and Nathan wasn't a lie. But she only said, "Do you mind if I hit the shower first?"

"Go ahead." Duke shrugged. "Washing regularly is kind of an optional experience for my counterpart so, you know, maybe later, but I'm not really feeling the need when I only just got this bandaged up." He lifted his scored arm and pointed to it.

She wrinkled her nose and slipped through the door into the adjoining bathroom.

Nathan's eyes followed her worriedly, and stayed on the door for several seconds after she'd closed it behind her. "She's giving us space."

"Yeah, and we can _not_ impose ourselves in hers, Nathan," Duke reminded him. "She doesn't remember loving us."

"This is going to get better, isn't it?" Nathan's fixed attention turned to Duke, full of exasperation, and _fear_ , and other things that should not have fit on a painted, mechanically driven expression. "It's enough thinking we might lose her when the Hunter comes, we can't have lost what time we had left!"

Duke shushed him. "We do _not_ want to get into that part of the explanation. It's enough having to sell the Troubles. The way we all are, the three of us together? To sell that to her afresh is a problem. I'm hoping like hell she remembers, too," he added. He eyed the shut door and the equally closed-off nature of Nathan's body language, and ached internally. "Come on," he prodded. "Let's do your maintenance while she's out of the way, huh?"

Nathan tipped his head on one side a moment, then shook it and reluctantly started to unfasten his vest and shirt. "I'd rather do it myself, but-"

"But you've only got one fully functional hand and even aside from that, there are gonna be places you can't reach," Duke finished. He caught the collar of the shirt and vest and drew them back, over Nathan's obediently stretched-back arms. His own arm twinged. "I'm better at the mechanical stuff, anyway. Should've been me last time, but..."

"Your alternate's an ass," Nathan concluded, then averted his gaze.

"So's... yours." Duke barely got the words out. There was a _lot_ of metal on show on Nathan, all of a sudden, that took his attention instead. Took his breath away. Duke threw the damaged shirt and vest across the bed, _staring_ at Nathan's fine shoulders reworked in burnished metal. The illusion of humanity ended at the nape of his neck: below that, the shapes were right enough to pass when covered by clothing, but there had been no effort made to paint, or cover up, the joints. Most of the plates overlapped across his shoulders, and down the curve of his spine and around his back, so there weren't gaps to see into the workings unless Nathan bent at an extreme and fully extended his form's capacity for movement. A quiver went through him, some sort of psychosomatic shudder of unease, and with the movement Duke saw how the plates in the left side of his back and shoulder were looser than the rest, making his sides look asymmetrical.

Duke rounded to the front of Nathan and gave in to the urge to touch. "This is crazy."

Nathan's chest rippled, the interlocking plates flowing away from Duke's fingers in a flinch. Nathan shot him a quelling look.

"No, I mean it's... crazy-amazing. Crazy-impossible. You're a freakin' beautiful piece of machinery, man!"

"You were going to _behave_ ," Nathan warned him, and confirmed again that he could still roll his clockwork eyes.

"Not like _that_. I meant- Damn it." Duke scrubbed his hands through his hair. "You need anything winding up? And no, that is not a come-on." It faintly killed him to remember trying to hold Nathan's function hostage, to remember being ready to put a bullet through his glass eye, the weak path into his otherwise protected brain.

"I did that ten times over while I was waiting for you both." Nathan sank down on the edge of the bed.

Duke knelt and pulled off Nathan's shoes, revealing metal feet that were a little more scarred and damaged than the rest, a match to Nathan's real feet, which had picked up injuries and twisted toes when he was eight years old and running around unable to feel for the better part of a year.

"I'd rather do this in two halves," Nathan said, intently.

Oh- "No, man. Your back is - you can't see it, those plates go right down into your butt and they're all... they're all interlocked like a puzzle. I can already see they're loose down the left from when you crashed to the deck. I need to look at them as a whole. Besides, I want to see! Come on, Nathan, throw me a bone."

"This does _not_ end in you indulging in either machine geek experimentation _or_ clockwork sex acts," Nathan emphasized again, before spreading his arms back and lifting his hips to allow Duke access to unfasten his pants. After argument, Duke _did_ leave the archaic underwear in place. He figured he could work around it, much as he was fascinated to know how things had been translated into metal and clockwork down there.

The right knee joint _clunked_ as Duke pulled the pants off over it, and it was immediately obvious that there was another problem there. Duke winced at the memory of cataloguing weaknesses like these. The knowledge that Heppa's police automata were brutal in a one-to-one fight but if you got them off balance, pushed them over something or off something, their own weight would work against them. That _fucking_ memory of putting a stolen pistol to the eyeball of a regular patrol officer - one of the blank metal faces - and watching him fall as the bullet mashed through glass and crystal lenses into the core of function. That Duke Crocker had been a sixteen year old street kid selling drugs to avoid starving to death... Which, yeah, _okay_ , kind of had a parallel in his own life, though he'd have had the state, he _could've_ gone to the state, even if he'd never trusted the state. But, Jesus, he'd never killed a cop! There might be the odd lowlife here and there that he'd taken a shot at, and avoided checking up on afterward, back before his Trouble came out and the others, but nothing like...

"What's the matter?" asked Nathan, probably wondering why Duke was staring so hard at his knee.

But Duke was the _real_ Duke Crocker, now, and fuck it, he hadn't killed that cop, and he hadn't killed Nathan, so he shoved the useless memories aside and set to work making use of the rest, the ones that knew how these guys ticked, because if he could pull them apart, he could put them back together, _alright_? He could use that now.

"Nothing's the matter. Lie down." He felt the clockwork beat when he put his palm in the centre of Nathan's chest, pressing his body to uncurl back onto the king size bed. There was definitely reluctance there beyond the odd click or crunch as the damaged plates and joints caught, but he got Nathan sprawled out staring at the ceiling with his arms stretched away from his torso.

His head jerked up again as soon as it touched down. "Maybe we should leave this. I'm functional enough."

"Audrey and I saw the doctors," Duke tutted. "You be brave, too. Though I guess you've no use for candy even if I had any."

"Doctor Duke," Nathan muttered in disgust as Duke climbed onto the bed beside him and rolled to grab the toolkit. "And his bag of tricks."

"I could make it naked maintenance," Duke suggested. "And since you can't feel anything anyway, you _do_ have the option of lying back and pretending I'm doing sexually intimate and dirty, dirty things to you."

"I'm pretty sure it'll be like that anyway," Nathan murmured, "because it's _you_." His eyes strayed worriedly to the closed bathroom door. "But, _clothes_ , Duke. Audrey doesn't remember being with us. If she walks out and finds you naked-"

"Okay, okay," Duke sighed. "Way to kill the mood." The Audrey situation was just _depressing_ and made him want to cling to Nathan all the more. What if she never remembered? What if she couldn't come to love them again? Rejected them, this time around? Hell, it hadn't exactly been a great introduction.

Though he should be more worried that she had a head wound bad enough to make her _lose her memory_ than what a shit deal that was for him. Especially considering all the other things that seemed to have been done to her memory before. What if the damage was...

"Sorry to kill it further," Nathan said, "and this is going to sound weird, but... I'm going to try and step back into being him. The clockwork version. He knows more about this body than I do."

"Me, too," Duke admitted. "I mean, the other Duke knows a few things about you guys... police automata. Dragged up the bad way, you know?"

Nathan cast him a disturbed look, but shook it off. "If you could hold off the innuendos, _or anything else_ , anyway. It could be... jarring. From that other perspective."

"Yeah, for both of us, but you're still a spoilsport." Duke pulled a face. "However we do this, Audrey's gonna walk out of there and think it's something dirty."

"Just because you would."

"He was more of a spoilsport than you are," Duke added, just in case Nathan didn't _know_ , because he kind of felt that Nathan _should_ know. "I don't know what Malcove's Trouble did with your sense of humour."

"You didn't get to _see it_ ," Nathan bitched. "Because you had me in cuffs the whole time. Speaking of which, I'm remembering that, and you owe me back in kind when we're normal again."

Uh-oh. Still, it could be fun. Duke shrugged and trailed a hand over Nathan's metal thigh toward the sort of weird Victorian boxers. "You going to show me what's under this, then?"

If Nathan had been flesh and blood, he'd have blushed furiously. " _No_. There's no damage under there. I can promise that. Duke, _focus_." He flicked his eyes back to the bathroom.

"Okay. Time to get serious in the no-fun sense." Duke sighed. "Are you... you're not ashamed of what Audrey sees, are you?"

Nathan only glared, so Duke picked a likely tool from the kit to unscrew the panels and looked for the best place to begin. He was both repulsed and weirdly fascinated by the task ahead of him. Fascinated as he'd be over any intricate machine... repulsed because this was _Nathan's body_. Also a little bit fascinated because it was Nathan's body.

"Start at the upper chest plates. This might be easier on a more solid surface."

"Not for my knees." Duke wasn't sitting on the floor for an hour or more after the punishment his body had taken today. Everything already ached enough. "So, those chest plates... Damn, this is awkward and _so weird_..."

Nathan's glass eyes watched over the movements of Duke's hands. While he was silent, Duke carried on, assuming his guesses were right ones. He started at what seemed an obvious top plate, directly over the left pectoral, and set it aside carefully with the screws that had fixed it in place cradled in its concave interior. Duke had half expected some sort of _heart_ , but the mechanism had no central core, just lots of interconnected gears and pulleys. The inside of Nathan's chest cavity clicked and whirred disturbingly. While he lay still, it wasn't doing anything more than ticking over, cogs jogging in a back and forth rhythm that was still sort of like a heartbeat.

"Move your arm," Duke said, voice hushed and fascinated, almost a whisper. Nathan narrowed his eyes but complied, bending the limb inward at the shoulder. Duke watched all the gears whirr in a definite direction, radiating out from the shoulder, bigger levers pumping deep in the chest cavity to prompt the heavy movement. "Holy _crap_."

"I'm sure I'm fantastic," Nathan snapped.

"You're a fucking _work of art_ ," Duke said. He smacked himself in the face with his open hand and scrubbed it over there a few times. This wasn't an engineering project. This wasn't his _boat_ , or a piece of diving equipment. "You know what's ironic?" He laughed suddenly. "I'm pretty sure it's the other guy responsible for the boner." All those years working out how to destroy the most complex machines he'd ever see-

 _No_. Duke stopped the train of thought again.

"Duke," Nathan berated, and okay, he really did have to get his head in the game, because if Nathan got pissed, this shot of maintenance was going to end right here, along with any other chance to try it, and who knew what state human-Nathan would be in if he got changed back without repairs?

"Shit. Sorry. I'm working. Working head is on now." He tried to ignore the ache of the other head in his pants.

Duke focused his attention as promised. He took the panels off in clusters, then fixed anything inside that didn't seem quite right, following Nathan's guidance. Tightened joints that were awkward to access, that he had to fucking straddle Nathan and press his hand right inside the chest cavity to reach. He got the shoulder rotating properly again, and the hip joint working, and only accompanied the latter with one joke about whole new levels of penetration.

Nathan was curt about that, but Duke was politely ignoring how dreamy his glass eyes were getting while he watched Duke work.

This was _definitely_ the other guys, Duke decided.

Some of the panels were bent, resisting when he tried to take them off. The mechanisms inside that allowed complex movement looked alarmingly fragile compared with the hard exterior, but that didn't freak Duke out nearly so much as when Nathan saw he was struggling and clamped his fingers around a panel to disengage it with a strong tug.

"I've done this before," Nathan said, as Duke spluttered and snatched back the bent panel, checking it and then the place it had been yanked from frantically for damage.

"No. You _haven't_."

"All right, but my memory has."

"And we're not wholly in that world right now, so how about we show more fucking caution?"

Nathan just scowled. Duke frowned at the plate. "I'm gonna get us chucked out of the hotel if I try to hammer this back into shape here."

"Put it to one side, then, and fix all the bent ones outside in the yard later."

So Duke put the rest back into place and worked around the problem. He'd nearly done Nathan's front, and since he'd tackled tightening the damaged joints from the front, which had been the bitch of a job, it shouldn't take so long to do the back. The knee proved trickier than shoulder and thigh, because the casing was smaller, and he couldn't get his fingers into the tight space to get the grip. "Okay if we get Audrey to try this?" he asked dubiously. "Smaller hands."

"Okay."

Duke put the undamaged panels back on, fairly loosely, and patted Nathan's hip. "Okay, turn over. I _have_ to see your iron butt."

"You're enjoying this," Nathan grumbled, but he turned. He even let Duke pull down the pseudo-Victorian-undies to what would have been the crease of his ass, to deal with the metal plates that feathered down through his buttocks to allow complete range of movement of his spine. But that became more alarming than anything else, because the left side was dented all to hell. "Where I bounced off the deck," Nathan said, with that disturbing void of emotional connection with the damage, looking over his shoulder.

Duke sighed and stripped all the plates off, and put them with the others he needed to tackle outside. Some loose gears clunked inside Nathan as he shifted and Duke groaned and set about retrieving them from the workings with tweezers and figuring out where the hell they were supposed to _be_. He reattached a last few levers that had come adrift, and sat back to let Nathan move experimentally.

"How is it?"

"It's better," Nathan said, with some surprise.

"Are you gonna be all right, being left with that much wide open?" Duke asked, concerned, and gestured to the pile of dented plates. "'Cause all of those need attention."

"It's not going to be for long, and nobody's going to be shooting at me." He shrugged it off.

All in all, it was really, _really_ fortunate that Nathan was naturally of a somewhat macabre bent, but Duke couldn't help wincing over it for him.

The other side of Nathan's back was fine, which just left the busted knee and the arm that was in need of new parts, which Duke hadn't tackled. "I figure you should at least get your pants and the vest back on to cover those gaps, before we horrify Audrey, then," Duke said.

"She won't be _horrified_ ," Nathan said tersely, but he was still pretty quick about pulling the clothes on.

He'd barely got the new pants over his hips and sunk down on the edge of the bed again when she walked out of the bathroom.


	7. Chapter 7

**7.**

Audrey had been imagining all sorts of goings-on in the room outside while she was in the shower, so she was a bit surprised and perhaps even disappointed when she emerged to discover Nathan sitting on the edge of the bed and Duke poking at his arm.

"-tightened up the shoulder, but this probably needs-" Duke broke off and they both stopped to look at her, both rather guiltily.

Well, that suggested that the things she'd been imagining _might_ have been a feature after all. "Don't stop on my account."

"We're really close to done," Duke said.

Nathan averted his gaze and didn't say anything, as though all the metal on display was a problem for him. As she watched, Duke tapped his knuckles on a metal arm to get his attention, and Nathan darted a quick glance his way and nodded. Duke started screwing a panel back on.

Audrey rounded the bed with the dress she hadn't worn in her hand. She had decided to stick with the exercise pants and T-shirt provided by the police. The outfit seemed more appropriate for where they were now, and it would be easy to sleep in it.

She was going to have to crash sometime soon. Even if she did have an instinct, some kind of inner voice telling her she could trust Nathan and Duke, the three-way prospect seemed to call for a healthy dose of caution.

A pile of dented metal panels near the pillows made her frown. She could see, from her new angle, that a large portion of Nathan's back was uncovered. It might not be a gaping wound, but she could see inside to his internal workings and it gave her pause. "These are going back, aren't they?" she asked anxiously.

She watched some kind of airbag nestled between the complex gears and mechanisms inside the area directly beneath Nathan's throat inflate and deflate through the back of his shoulder as he said, "Yes."

"Gonna take them outside to try knock them back into shape," Duke said. "Ah, hell, should we call this a day here? Not a lot I can do with that arm right now, and it's not like we have to get you undressed for that. I'll deal with these-" He leaned over and scraped up the panels. "Then we can get the holes patched up. I am definitely not keen on leaving you to sit around like this for long. Maybe Audrey can fix that knee while I'm gone."

"All right," Nathan said. Audrey joined him in dubiously watching Duke leave.

After the door clicked shut, she plumped down on the bed next to him. "What's the matter with your knee?"

He leaned to roll up the leg of his pants. "The joint is loose. Duke's fingers were too big to reach inside to tighten it." His movements had gone even stiffer than usual, his face rigid and almost frozen. Audrey could hear, now that she knew it was there to listen for it, the soft, airy _huff_ of that inflating airbag right before he spoke. He might not need to breathe to survive, but he needed air to form words.

"I'm... not going to _hurt_ you, if Duke didn't." She tried to be reassuring, feeling mildly offended as she tentatively reached for his knee. "I fixed your hand, remember?"

"You can't _hurt_ me," he said flatly. "Less now than ever." He turned a loose screw a few times with his fingertips and plucked it out, then pulled away the largest of the plates over his knee. "There's a sort of toggle, lodged right inside the joint. It needs rotating until everything tightens up again. Unless it's been sprained, in which case we need to replace it... somehow. I'll lock my leg out, so the mechanism can't close on your fingers."

His terseness and caution with her was dismaying. In fact, this whole situation was dismaying, and not just... in the _obvious_ respects. When it had been the three of them seemingly thrown together as strangers who felt an odd connection to each other despite their different interests, she had felt like an equal member of their party. Now, with Duke and Nathan re-forged as a unit, the two men had such a closeness to each other that she felt like she had lost _her_ place among them. She couldn't help but miss the camaraderie of them all being in, well, _in the same boat_.

She knew that was unfair. Their rediscovery of each other was a good thing, and their affection would enfold her, too, if she gave it a chance to, but right now that asked too much of her, needed the memory and history that she had lost.

Still, she now had access to those memories in the form of other people who knew who she should be. People who were demonstrably willing to risk themselves for her, and she didn't _not_ trust them. It was just too fast, with they magically returned to themselves, and...

She needed time to adjust.

"Are you all right?" Nathan asked slowly, worry overtaking his awkwardness. He reached up and trailed his fingers over her arm, forgetting himself. Halfway down her arm, he flinched back and pulled a twisted face at his gloved metal hand.

"It's all right," Audrey said. "You can touch me. I don't mind if you're made of metal. I know you'll be careful."

"I wasn't, though," he said, eying her bruised hand, even though he'd inflicted it saving her life. "And usually I'm _not_. Not... careful and _not_ made of _metal_. I'm flesh and- I'm a _man_. I love you but you hardly know me at all. What you know of me now is as this - this machine!" He made a noise that wasn't very automaton-like at all.

"Duke didn't seem to be having too much problem," Audrey said, as she ducked her head and knelt to examine his damaged knee joint.

He jerked his chin up as she slid her fingers inside. "Duke and I are different. Back on the ship, that wasn't even all that _unusual_. We're- He's a..." His mouth twisted, grinding metal somewhere inside. "And I chose to be a police detective. And yet..."

"An epic tale of star-crossed romance," Audrey quipped lightly. "With added handcuffs." Her fingers found the toggle, and she tugged carefully, finding far too much give. Damn. They did not need this to be difficult to repair. She started to twist it slowly, making his knee shudder and his face steel all the more expressionlessly. Nathan placed a hand firmly on the leg to hold it in place.

"It's not even kinky," Nathan said. "Well, not usu- It's just _sad_ , okay? This place, the new memories, just bring it into relief. Everything that happened on the _Cape Rouge_..."

Audrey didn't have to think hard about what in particular he was referring to. She hadn't doubted that he was _real_ since the moment Duke stuck a pistol in his eye. But the incongruity now was greater, with an obvious human being talking to her, yet gaping holes in his torso revealing mechanics while her hand was lodged inside the clockwork of his knee.

"He's really upset about that," Audrey said, because she'd seen that. "He wouldn't have done it. He stopped before I stopped him."

"I know."

The knee gave a soft _chuck_ around her hand and he said, "Ah."

For a moment, she was unsure if that was a positive sound or a warning one. Awkwardly, he said, "Can you-?" and following his gesture, she extracted her fingers. He flexed the joint and his metal jaw shaped a slight smile.

There had been at least a moment back on the airship, Audrey critiqued silently, where Nathan had _not_ known. The moment that had given them what should have been a mere machine, in _fear_ , and been enough to change both of their minds.

He was undoubtedly fixed, so Audrey straightened and left him alone to screw the panels back on his leg.

Duke and Nathan seemed to have just slung Nathan's clothes wherever they landed when they'd been doing their 'maintenance' - which either suggested parts of it _had_ more resembled her thoughts of earlier, or that they were just men. She picked the clothes up, cataloguing the grass stains and tears, and figured that they were probably beyond repair, even if they were far better quality than the replacements Duke had bought.

"How are you?" he asked cautiously, flexing his knee as he put down the screwdriver, and turned his head to find her gaze. "Your head injury. They let you go, so... you must be all right. Did they say anything about your memories?"

"They said 'wait and see'." Audrey sighed. "Okay, there's really not that much that Duke didn't say, because there's really _not much_. All a bunch of hedging and 'we don't really understand these types of injuries fully' and 'the human brain is a funny thing'. I don't know." She clenched her fists in frustration "I wish I did. I want to know who I am, believe me." She watched his face soften. "What I am, what _all_ of us are."

"I understand," he said, a bit wryly. He stared at his hands, then peeled off his glove from the right. The detail of the articulated joints was astonishing. Of course, this one was the broken one. The bandage remained on his wrist, and from the range of movement of the fingers, Duke had been able to do nothing to improve it, if he'd had chance to try. "The Troubles, that Duke told you about..." Nathan splayed his hand, reaching it out to her, and lifted his eyes with a question in them. "I have one. Even when I'm not like this."

Duke had told her he couldn't _feel_. There were a number of ways to interpret that statement, and she hadn't entirely understood what he meant, and the conversation had been interrupted before she could ask. She lifted her hand, matching it to his palm and pushing the immobile smallest finger into line with the others as she did. It seemed a small, harmless thing, for all that she'd been avoiding too much physical or any intimate contact with either man. But she watched him close his eyes and knew it _wasn't_ small, even though she couldn't imagine how it could be so significant.

"What?" she asked, pushing sharpness into the question, wondering what he'd plied unwittingly from her.

"Like this, I don't have any _nerve endings_ ," he said, sounding so lost and confused she forgave him on the instant. "It's completely impossible. But I can still... feel you. Deep down."

She remembered, from before, his report of a tingle. "You know what it's about, now? What happens when I touch you?" She flexed her hand. The metal was growing warm from her own skin, that radiated heat after coming out from the hot water of the shower.

He nodded, and blinked his eyes open again. His face rearranged and he removed his hand of his own accord. "I'm sorry. I hadn't touched you, since... I had to check if what I remembered... It's still the same." He took a breath, air bag inflating. "I can't feel. Anything. Except you. Because you're immune."

"And we're in a relationship?" she asked, raising her eyebrows, rubbing her fingers against her palm contemplatively because that sounded horribly convenient. "Well, you and me and _Duke_ , anyway. Can you-?" No, he'd just said it was only her. "Him, you can't feel?" she checked anyway, and reflected that that parsed slightly better, especially considering how _into_ each other they'd obviously been when she walked out of the bathroom, and back in the police car before that.

"No." He shook his head. "Plenty of other history between me and Duke. Which this Trouble saw fit to _erase_." He looked pissed off. "I thought you should know, though, that when Duke says you're special, that fixing the Troubles is what you do... It's more. It's part of who you are. If you can't remember that, you need to _understand_ it."

She shook her head, frustrated. What did it matter if she was 'special', if right now they remembered and she did not? "Right now, this is out of reach," she told him flatly.

"It's not," he came back unexpectedly. "Because there are physical effects. Don't you see?!" He aborted a grab for her hand. "And you need to know because we're going to walk back into that place, and Duke and I... we think the most likely scenario is... Duke and I are going to _forget_."

"He's right." Nathan's head jerked around guiltily at the sudden appearance of Duke, who dropped the metal plates one by one on the bed. They looked straighter, although possibly still not absolutely straight. "You're the immune one. I was going to do this after I'd slept."

Nathan's face shifted grimly, and Audrey could see what they meant, because Duke's movements were lined increasingly with exhaustion and there were dark smudges beneath his eyes. He'd been up thirty-six hours straight that she could attest to, and she remembered keenly what that felt like.

"We also need to, I don't know, write letters for ourselves, for each other, that we know we'll understand later." He dug into a bag abandoned on the dresser and pulled out two pads of notepaper and a pack of cheap ballpoint pens, and passed one of the notepads at Nathan, fishing a pen from the packet to throw after it.

"We might not forget," Nathan said, looking at the stationary and backtracking stolidly. "And Audrey will remember."

"Write it or don't write it." Duke's temper sounded short. "Write something to yourself, if you don't want to write to me. But given what you're _like_ , and I'd say the 'other you' except it's really _not_ , it'd make things for the rest of us a whole lot easier if you could manage to put down something convincing."

Their being pissy with each other was telling Audrey so much more than their lovey-dovey actions of earlier. And oddly, her familiarity with being with them like this was far stronger. "So we need to... remember... to fix the 'Trouble'?" she checked, throwing in an air quote. "But I'll remember anyway, even if I've forgotten everything else?"

"Nothing changed for you when we crossed out of the steampunk world," Duke said. "Your memory loss is down to a head injury. We, on the other hand, have both been affected by a Trouble. When we cross back, chances are we'll be affected again. We're vulnerable to that, and it _is_ frustrating, so, you know, don't think that we don't get that. But it's also happened before."

"You were hurt by someone who knew you could fix this," Nathan said dangerously. "When I find them..."

"Yeah, if it's Malcove, he needs to start praying," Duke agreed. "But right now, chill." He tapped the plates he'd dropped on the bed. "I should put these back, since I don't want to elbow you in the gears and knock half your insides loose during the night."

Nathan reached for the buttons of his vest, then looked at Audrey.

She raised her hands, and turned her back. "If I stand like this, can we keep talking about _my memory_ and the things you're not telling me?"

"I didn't mean to-" Nathan stuttered, at the same time as Duke griped, "You _could_ have waited until we were all together."

"You can look," Nathan said. "I - it's just that I didn't want to embarrass or... disgust you."

Duke was rolling his eyes as she turned back around. He'd already peeled one side of Nathan's vest away and the holes through his chest cavity were bigger.

"It's not disgusting," Audrey told him. "It's just strange." It would probably be stranger still if she remembered him as a human, living man, if she really _knew_ him the way he did her. "But back on subject. The subject of me."

"It's not that we're not telling you," Duke said, groaning. "It's just beyond complicated. And _ongoing_. We don't know all the answers ourselves." He turned to Nathan for aid, but ended up swearing over a thread of the vest caught in Nathan's mechanisms and was distracted helping to tug the garment clear while Nathan looked mortified. "The Troubles are... cyclical. Every twenty-seven years a woman appears who's immune to them and helps fix them. For another twenty-seven years, until they start, uh, bleeding through again."

"That's a pretty good summary." Nathan gathered up plates for his chest that Duke flung into his lap and snapped them into place with a very fixed focus while Duke went to work covering the huge exposed cavity down his left side.

"It doesn't explain anything!" Audrey protested. "That's supposed to be me? Who am I? Why do I appear? Why am I immune? Why are you all so, so magically afflicted anyway?!"

"Exactly." Duke clicked his fingers and gave a defiant smile, and she wanted to punch him. Which must have come through in her expression. "Okay, all right! But the simple fact is, we can't tell you the answers because the real you is more like a bundle of questions!"

"But we love you," Nathan said intently, shocking her again with the fact he so easily _said it_. "We _know_ you. And that's enough."

"And when he's finished freaking you out..." Duke swatted the back of Nathan's head and contorted his mouth silently as he hurt his hand. "Nate, I need your ass."

Audrey couldn't help but raise her eyebrows and quash the start of a giggle as Nathan turned around with a sucked-lemon face. Duke waved a metal plate which had a distinctive buttock-curve to it.

"This is you guys," she said, and she got it. Not earlier, when they'd been in shock, silenced by their surroundings, panicked and strained, screwed up by guilt. This was why she'd felt better on the airship with them harping at each other. "Between the two worlds, you're basically the same."

Nathan's jaw clanked as it fell. "I resent that."

"Oh, come on," Duke said. "We're in this mess in the first place because you froze Malcove on not having his paperwork in order. Now you're a _literal_ metal-assed stiff that can't say 'boo' to a regulation."

"You _said_ Malcove wasn't my fault."

"I changed my mind." Duke tugged him upright and yanked his pants down to half-mast. All Audrey saw was overly long undergarments. Nathan was twisting from the shoulder to look around at Duke, not paying her any attention. He looked pissed as hell.

"Even if I'd known he'd change me into _this_ ," Nathan rapped, "I'd still not let him get away with trying to hold a public event on premises that didn't hold up to fire and crowd safety standards and then trying to _bribe_ me."

"Oh, come on." Duke wrenched the screwdriver around to punctuate each word, tightening the plates in-position. "Greasing the wheels is how the world moves, it doesn't make him _evil incarnate_ -"

"It would have made it _corruption_ if I'd accepted!"

"-and _yes_ , Nathan, this is _so much better_ than letting a health and safety technicality slide. That decision worked out well."

"It was better than compromising-" Nathan choked off and flung his hands up. "This is pointless. You think we should all be irresponsible like you. Ignore the law to make things easier. Well, I'm not _like_ you..."

Duke's hand rang as it slapped him hard on the ass, staggering him and making his jaw gape again. " _Damn it_ , Duke!"

"Fine. But right now your rigid, metal ass is fixed, thanks to me."

Audrey was treated to the sight of all the plates Duke had just replaced coiling neatly to simulate the real curving motion of a human spine as Nathan turned on him. For a moment, she thought Nathan was going to throw a punch, and readied herself to step in. Instead, he snatched the screwdriver out of Duke's hand, imbuing the small gesture with violence. "Give me that."

He walked away from them both and used the screwdriver to fix in place the few stray plates that remained. Then he reached down and fastened his pants.

"Nathan..." Duke said, taking a hesitant step and reaching out a hand.

"No, it's true, isn't it?" When he looked back, his blue eyes were hard. _Glass shouldn't be able to do that_ , thought Audrey, unable to argue the fact that it _had_. "This happened because of me. I was the... trigger."

"Nate, there was no way to predict he was going to react this way," Duke groaned, backtracking. "Look, I'm in a shitty mood, and this situation..."

"You're _always_ in a-" But Nathan caught and held his tongue, and shook his head. "You need _sleep_ , Duke."

"You do," Audrey broke in. "There's no point arguing about this, or anything else, until you've had some rest. How long has it been?"

"You refused to sleep on the _Rouge_ ," Nathan pointed out, but because apparently that was the way they did things, added a muttered, "Asshole."

"I was looking out for all our interests by not sleeping on the _Rouge_ ," Duke said.

"It's not really important," Audrey injected. Duke was abrasive through exhaustion and Nathan was abrasive through his traumatic transformation, and she was sure any discussion would go far better after a stretch of downtime. "Guys, you need to rest."

Duke looked guiltily at Nathan. "That arm of yours..."

Nathan pulled the new, white shirt down over it in response, and the new vest on over that, and brushed himself down with his hands, working and broken one alike, then topped the performance off by dragging his fingers through the short, brown fuzz of his artificial hair. "We'll deal with that another time."

"Fine." Duke sighed. "I bought toothbrushes. Not that I guess you need one. Actually, I got a little pot of flesh coloured paint... maybe your face..." He winced as Nathan moved to make a study of himself in a wall mirror.

"Later," Nathan said, and determinedly turned aside and dismissed that, too.

Audrey pointed silently at the bathroom and Duke retreated into it.

She was surprised when she turned away to find Nathan watching her with a subdued smile. "You're still the one who keeps us in line. Are you all right, with this...?" He jerked his head at the large bed. It was another of those times she was sure he'd be blushing if he still had the capacity.

"I guess so. After all, apparently we know each other pretty well in some world. Besides, I figure the guy made of metal isn't going to try anything." She softened it with a smile of her own.

"When we're back... if Duke and I don't know each other this way... maybe it'll be easier for you again."

She hadn't expected him to be so astute, and it stung because she _had_ thought it. "I'm not wishing forgetting on you," she said with a shudder.

"If it happens, it happens either way." His face was very serious. "We can't afford to lose our focus. We're the _only ones_ who know something is wrong with the world. Probably no-one else can get inside past that wall, and however reality has warped to encompass that, it's not going to be long before it draws the kind of attention we don't need. It's absolutely vital that you remember for us why we went back, and keep us all on track."

Audrey took a steadying breath. "Because we have to put the world back to normal, and stop this Malcove person. Don't worry. I won't let you stay this way forever."

"That isn't import-" Nathan looked down, then away. "I can't say I wouldn't rather be human again, even if I can't feel my body anyway."

"It makes a pretty big difference to _me_ ," Duke said, emerging from the bathroom. He'd stripped off all but his boxers, which were as old fashioned as Nathan's. He saw Audrey's gaze and grimaced, not entirely reading her study correctly. She'd been looking at his sculpted body, and more ruefully at the extensive bruising on it from the crash. "Yeah, I definitely should've bought more underwear. Call it a personal blind spot."

Nathan gave something like a laugh, and eyed Duke's path across the room as Duke sidled around him. But he didn't pull away as Duke snaked an arm around his waist and over his shoulder, catching him in a loose embrace from behind, and kissed him on the neck. "I want you back. _All_ of you. The you that can respond to this."

To Audrey, it looked like Nathan was responding to it now, his eyes sliding shut and his body yearning back into Duke. "There are probably things we can do," he murmured, very low. "In the morning. In the bathroom." His slit eyes slid over Audrey, and blinked wide.

"Hey," she said. "By all accounts we're in a relationship. That means I get to watch."

It was Duke's turn to snicker. "I'm gonna hold you to that promise. Schedule one robot hand-job..."

"I could also _damage_ something we'll miss later, and I'm _not a robot_."

"Tomayto, tomahto," said Duke. He kissed the line of Nathan's jaw. "I love you."

Even Audrey could see that that took Nathan's artificial breath away. But he stepped free of Duke's arm and climbed onto the bed to sit up between the pillows, leaving a little less than half the bed for Audrey alone and reaching for Duke's hand to pull him in. "You both need sleep, and it'll be easier for me to get around like this at night."

His long legs sprawled out like a divider, and it was clear that that was all he'd intended to be. But Duke bunched up his pillows and moved over, plopping them all on Nathan's lap, and curled his body around so he could rest his head there. Nathan received it with as much bemusement as the kisses, but rested his hand on the pillow by Duke's shoulder nonetheless.

"Audrey?"

His glass eyes entreated her to trust them. She nodded and climbed in on his other side. Nathan's right hand, the broken hand, was on the very edge of her pillow. Duke was making a show of snuggling into Nathan, who looked pained and stoic and... painfully _isolated_ , locked-in by his unliving, cold-metal condition.

Audrey lay down slowly. She _was_ tired. She had stolen enough sleep to refresh her on the _Cape Rouge_ , but a lot had happened since and a lot had happened before. Duke, just as utterly exhausted, was already starting to snore softly.

In a last impulse before she dug down into the comforter and closed her eyes, Audrey reached her hand out across the pillows and rested it on top of Nathan's.

He was still looking out for them, she thought, fuzzily, feeling a warmth enter her at the thought. Still keeping watch... Just like he had back on the airship.

* * *

Audrey woke up to soft whispers exchanged between mellow male voices, and drifted in the haze and comfort of the sounds, not necessarily able to make out the words, but the tone they carried was full of soothing, sleepy affection. Strangely, it was _not_ strange, and nor was it threatening, to be in bed with two men. She lay and let their voices roll over her and basked in the familiarity of it, the feeling of belonging.

"-was _kidding_ , Duke." The words started to make it through as Nathan's voice raised a fraction in exasperation. "Besides, Audrey's here, and she doesn't remember us."

"Audrey's asleep," Duke grumbled back, "and even if she wasn't, _she said_ she'd watch."

Nathan answered with a noise that sounded more mechanical than human.

"What can I say? Proof that you're sexy even as a machine, jerkass."

"I'm _not_ \- Okay, we're not doing this and there's nothing sexy about this... form."

"Just freaking grope me or something. I swear, Nathan, if we _are_ stuck with you this way forever, I am not going to buy into that crap. You lost three years deciding you had to close yourself off from any kind of sexuality because you couldn't _feel_ , and I am not losing you to this. Just please freakin' _try_! You've got the same brain. There has to be something. It's got to do _something_. You can still see me."

"And what's in it for you, exactly?" Nathan growled.

"I just said you've got the same brain! You're still you! Fuck!" Duke matched Nathan's rising aggravation, and Audrey sighed internally, and that was familiar, too.

Things were quiet a moment. Then, she heard a muffled noise from Duke, mixed with a soft movement from Nathan. She hardly dared to breathe, after that, for fear that she'd alert them to her wakeful state and they'd stop, no matter what Duke had said. They were very, very quiet, and all she could mark was the way Duke's breathing changed and hitched, and the occasional involuntary click or whirr from Nathan's clockwork body.

"See," Duke breathed, finally, stretching out the word in a soft exhalation. " _See_?"

Audrey dared turn as if still in sleep and peeked through her eyelashes at them. Duke was cradled between Nathan's knees, and had Nathan's hands curled between his legs. But even that was not so intimate as Nathan's face pressing forward over Duke's shoulder, placing them cheek-to-cheek.

"I don't have any release," Nathan said quietly. "I can love you, but it's _just_ that. There's no... body chemistry. I still had that, before."

"Damn it," Duke said, turning one of his fists back to pound it on Nathan's embracing thigh.

Nathan lifted his hand. "I need to clean my glove."

He made to move, squeaking the bed from his weight, and Duke turned around and more or less sat on him, hands reaching down to grab him under the knee and thigh. A significant barrier between them had clearly dissolved, their touches far more casual and easy. "What?" Nathan asked.

Duke leaned in and kissed him. "You taste of metal and oil and wood," he said disgustedly, before leaning back in again. "And I don't care. Good morning, honey."

"Don't call me pet names, Duke," Nathan said in a by-rote fashion as Duke let him up. He paused and leaned his head in close again to hiss, "It's not the _same_. Biology matters," then he retreated to the bathroom. Audrey let herself blink and sit up as the door clicked to and water started to run.

"And a good morning to you, too," Duke said, with a dented smile.

After their intimacy so close to her own personal space, it was easy to reach out and rub his knee. "If we fix the Trouble, we fix this, right? And I... I always fix the Trouble."

"You always do," he said. "And if you fix this you'll be my personal favourite superhero for life. Not that you aren't already, of course."

"I can live with being a superhero, I guess." She frowned at the closed bathroom door. "How is it that the one of us who doesn't need to pee just claimed first dibs on the bathroom?" He snorted. "What time is it?"

"It's about 10pm. The respectable people will all be getting ready for bed." He groaned as he pried himself up from the mattress. She had seen, earlier, the extensive bruising on his body from the crash, but it looked worse now, having darkened and deepened while he slept. He'd left blood on the bed sheets from a few scrapes, though the bandage on his arm appeared to be holding up. "Hotel are going to be pissed, between that and Nathan denting the head board," he observed, noting her gaze.

Audrey looked at the head board, but it was only a small dent, more like a scratch where his neck had rested. "I think they're more likely to notice the sheets."

"I vote we just split. They're still gonna think that we're heading out for a stroll or a late drink at this time. We'll have to sneak Nathan and the baggage out, but those two things kind of dovetail nicely into the same solution."

Nathan emerged from the bathroom, and Duke made a dive for it but then caught himself, sighed, and waved Audrey in ahead. "Okay, I can be gallant. I _can_."

By the time she was finished and they'd swapped over, Nathan was self-consciously straightening his clothes in the mirror. With the resources of the bathroom made available, he moved on to retrieve the paint Duke had bought and used some tissue to brush it over the damaged parts of his face, fading the new colour to blend in with the old by using a little of the instant coffee provided in their room, a trick that struck Audrey as rather clever.

"You learn that painting those unbelievably boring seascapes the other year?" Duke asked, coming out of the bathroom.

Nathan shot him an aggrieved look and snapped the lid closed on the paint. He ran the cheap comb Duke had bought through his hair. "I think it looks as good as it's going to. Doesn't look _human_." He traced the highly visible joint lines around his jaw with a fingertip.

"From a distance," Audrey said. "Or from behind. Or at a glance. It _is_ better. You look fine."

"We need to leave," Nathan said, and frowned at Duke. "Are you going to shower before you dress? I'm counting myself lucky I don't have a sense of smell right now."

Audrey wrinkled her nose and added, virtually pleading, "It wouldn't take long. And some hot water would ease out all those muscle pains as well, I'm sure. Plus the bandage probably needs changing anyway."

Duke threw up his hands and went, and Nathan fastened his shirt cuffs and started pulling together all the bits and pieces Duke had bought while Audrey reluctantly packed her body into another uncomfortable dress. "I really hate corsets."

Nathan cast a guilty look across to her. "I, um, don't hate the corset. Sorry."

"Yeah? I'd like to see you or Duke wear one," she grumped.

"I could go for putting Duke in one," he agreed, deadpan. "Nice and tight. Constricts the chest, makes it harder to talk, right?"

"Huh." She stopped and said, "Huh," again as he offered her two envelopes. One had his own name on it. The other had Duke's. He looked acutely uncomfortable about it. "Nathan, what is this?"

"Duke's dumb idea to write to ourselves. I spent a lot of time sitting watching you both sleep, so it seemed... Can you keep hold of them until they're needed? If they're needed."

"Of course." Audrey tucked the letters into the lining of her bodice. This dress wasn't so floofy and expansive as the last, and she appreciated its design for being a bit more sane for practical use, but it didn't have the copious silly folds that had been so useful to hide things in, either. "Maybe they won't be needed," she said encouragingly.

Nathan shrugged and said, "We're not that lucky, but maybe."

Duke emerged this time wearing a suit - not so formal as Nathan's, in dark brown shades that seemed warmer and more casually wearable. He'd added a vest in green and grey stripes, and left the collar of his pale cream shirt undone by several buttons to show a flash of chest.

Audrey blinked quite a lot. This was no longer the grubby, oil-stained airship owner. He'd even tied his hair back in a neat ponytail. "Hey, you look... nice."

"You do." Nathan smiled the broadest smile she'd seen on his face. "That ensemble must _hurt_."

"I can wear a suit," Duke protested. "You've seen me in a suit before, Nate."

"Wasn't that prom night?"

"Dick," Duke shot back. "I _remember_ prom night. You didn't show. You were, what, out boning the Reverend's daughter under the stars? If you'd shown, I might have asked you to dance."

"I'd still have said 'no'."

Duke pulled a face but he was grinning. He shifted his gaze to Audrey. "You look nice, too."

She groaned. "I swear, if - assuming - I really am in a relationship with the two of you, you are both wearing one of these things the instant we all get back to normal. Because you deserve to _know_."

"I'm game if Nathan is. He won't feel it, but the sight would make it all worth while."

Nathan replied with a metal middle finger.

"We've done more imaginative things than that before," Duke protested. But then turned back to business. "Where'd you put the maps?"

Their things were all in a neat Nathan-organised pile at the foot of the bed. Nathan leaned down and pulled out the maps. "I was looking at them last night. It's bigger on the inside." He pulled a face, sort of. "It would have to be, if we're in Cawbrook. For sure we travelled further than forty miles in half a day and a whole night flying."

"Yeah..." Duke juggled the maps around, laying them out. "I'd have to agree with that." His fingers traced over the paper, and Audrey hitched up onto the bed to look. Nathan picked up and unfolded a map that said _Maine_ on the front, that Duke must have bought yesterday. "From Heppa to Callion is 80 miles, but we bypassed Callion to the west, and came a lot further than that a lot quicker than I'd normally fly. I'd say we ended up about twice that distance out... Here." He jabbed his finger at a spot on the edge of the map, where there was nothing much marked.

"'Here be dragons' territory?" Nathan suggested. "I didn't figure out where we were, exactly, but while you were asleep I was trying to line up a few common geographical features. Heppa's Haven, it's got to be, even if it doesn't resemble itself even remotely any more. But it's about ten times the size. The only way I could make sense of everything is if it's all been... stretched."

"This is where we live? The real us?" Audrey tapped the new map and pulled it away from Nathan. She looked at the names on it... _Haven, Camden, Bangor_... They all felt familiar to her, but she'd seen the same map in the police station, and no specific memories stirred. "Damn it," she said. "I wish I could _remember_."

"You will," Nathan said awkwardly. "Uh, Duke, that's another thing. How are we going to get Audrey's results tomorrow if we go back today?"

"Fix the Trouble," Duke said, "and phone from Haven."

"What if we can't, and we're caught up in this far longer than that?" Nathan pressed, anxiously. "She can't just call them up on her cellphone from inside the Trouble."

"I guess coverage would be an issue. I don't think Heppa's baby telephone system would be compatible, either." He sighed and looked at Audrey. "Perhaps we _should_ wait. We need to know what's wrong with your head."

She frowned. "But we _might_ fix it quickly. And I can always come out of the Trouble again, if we don't." She met their reluctant faces. "We aren't going to drop all plans because of this," she told them firmly. "You know what the doctors said to me? _Familiar surroundings and people_ would help bring my memories back. And while everything that should be familiar is _different_ because of this Troubled crap, it's only going to be so much harder to get back to being me."

Nathan winced a bit more obviously than Duke, and she sighed again. "And seriously, whatever things you're both still being so close-mouthed about, I'm going to strangle you both when I finally do remember if I judge you hadn't _damned good reason_."

"Oh, boy," murmured Duke.

* * *

They planned a route that ought to bring them back into the area of the Trouble via a main road, but approaching from a direction that would avoid the _Cape Rouge's_ crash site and any lingering attention Duke's damaged airship might have drawn. Ideally, they wanted to be near another city, as they weren't sure if the car would continue to work under the rules of the steampunk world, just as the _Cape Rouge_ had failed to stay in the air as they came close to the edge.

Nathan drove them out of Cawbrook and a few miles further, until they were on near-empty roads quite eerie in the gloom. Well past midnight in the middle of nowhere, he pulled the car to a halt. "Audrey needs to be the one driving," he said, and asked her, "Do you think you can?"

"Why-?" Duke started, and broke off. "Oh. We don't know what happens to us when we go through. That's true. Forgetting how to drive while we were behind the wheel probably would suck."

"That, and I think Audrey can take the car through the barrier if she's in control of it, whereas I'm not so sure we can," Nathan said.

That he'd been driving at all was a little of a mystery. He'd had a quiet conversation when they first came out and Duke had surrendered the keys to him. Audrey wasn't sure if it was to do with Duke's arm injury or Nathan practicing fine motor control.

Audrey wasn't averse to trying - everything looked _familiar_ , far more so than the airship had, or anything back on Heppa, and when she said, "Sure, let me at it," Nathan surrendered his seat to her grinning.

Nathan re-settled in the front passenger seat. Duke leaned between the seats from the back, rustling papers as his array of maps shifted. "You okay?"

"Yep... yep, I am pretty sure I can do this." Instinct kicked in and turned the key and eased her foot down, then they were moving, the shadowy scenery flying past, and Audrey felt a thrill of achievement and even let out a victory whoop.

It was so _different_ to being on Heppa. "It's no wonder I couldn't get _anywhere_ , when all of the options in front of me were _wrong_!" she exclaimed. "This, _this_ , I know... Okay, but one of you is going to have to shout out directions soon, because I have _no idea_ where we're going."

"Bear right," Duke said, for the intersection coming up, signpost rising bright out of the darkness as the headlights caught it. None of the names on there were anything Audrey recognised. The car squealed slightly as she turned. Duke cleared his throat uneasily behind her. "I think when we get closer we should probably slow down, because if there is some kind of wall that's going to be even remotely tangible to Nathan and myself-"

"Ouch," Audrey summed up. "Check."

They didn't get that far. They passed a few drivers who blinked headlights at them. Audrey, unsure what they wanted, slowed down further and carried on, though she quizzed Duke and Nathan whether either of them had left something on the roof. "No... Wait, look-" Nathan caught it first, his eyes sharper in the dark. Then they were all leaning forward tensely, and the reason for the other motorists' warnings was dead ahead... A short line of halted cars. At the front of the line, the lead car was manoeuvring to turn back.

"They've blocked the road..." Nathan craned out of his window to see better. "People in suits... they're talking to the next driver."

"Police?" asked Audrey nervously.

"I can't see any uniforms, and we shouldn't have to _worry_ about the police," he said, voice carrying an edge of frustration, "because _we're_ the police. They're just men in dark suits." He pulled his head back into the car abruptly.

Duke leaned over to look and swore. "Incoming."

A suited figure strolled across and tapped on the driver's side window next to Audrey's face, looming ominously out of the night, almost silhouetted by the moving car headlights behind him that belonged to the most recent vehicle sent back down the line. She wound the window down and tried to project 'natural' into her voice, but very much suspected it came out manically cheerful instead. "Hi, hey, what's going on?"

"Gas leak," the man said. "Accident. We need you to turn and find a different route."

"Yes, sir," Nathan said, averting his face while trying not to look as though he was. "We'll do that. Thank you."

Audrey frowned, but the guy was already moving away. She eased the car out, though, and followed the example of the rest of the cars before them. Duke was a litany of under-his-breath cussing from the back, which broke into exclamation as soon as they were reasonably out of earshot. "Fuck! Holy _fuck_ , Nate, there are _fucking M.I.B_. investigating this freakin' Trouble!"

"The barrier?" Of course, Audrey thought. What else would they be here for? It would be unreasonable to suppose that it had been here for days and _someone_ hadn't noticed it.

"Then we're lucky the perimeter's so wide and so far from Haven," Nathan said tightly.

"We still have to find a way around," Audrey said. "Duke, where am I going now?"

"Okay, okay..." Maps rustled behind her. "There's a track, sharp right just a short way along here... Looks like it should be a road on the steampunk side, so far as I can tell."

"Kill the suspension going off-road in this thing," Nathan commented, but it wasn't so much an objection as an observation, possibly down to sympathy for a fellow machine, and it was certainly a bumpy ride when Audrey swung around and off up the track.

"About two miles down," Duke said. "You'll need to go slower than this."

"I'm not intending to smash us into an invisible wall, guys," Audrey said. "Hey, if we _do_ hit, shouldn't Duke be in the front? He can feel it sooner if-"

"I'm _repairable_ ," Nathan grit. "And I'll be just fine. I can't feel pressure, but it still affects me. I can tell when it does."

"That was kind of sweet, from you," Duke said. "Oh, _shit_ \- over there! Audrey, maybe we need to speed up after all."

She turned her head and saw the glint of headlights accelerating on the track behind them. A sort of _rrrrrrrrr_ noise slid into her awareness and more lights and movement in the sky caught her eye. She squinted. "Oh my God. There's a _helicopter_." And that word rolled off her tongue as though she'd never lost her memory.

" _Don't_ speed up," Nathan said. "We can't be far now."

"Touch me," she blurted out, with a sudden horrible thought. "If the car isn't enough... Duke, Nathan, _grab hold_! Now!"

Audrey felt Duke's fingers brush the back of her neck and rest there. Nathan had to strip his glove off, though she wasn't too sure if in his clockwork form, that didn't equally count as a part of him. Her heart pounded as he delayed and her hand was grabbing for his metal wrist before he'd got his fingers clear.

"Okay," she said. "We're doing this." The cars behind them were steadily gaining. She could even see inside their windshields in the mirror, pick out from darkness and light-flare the men wearing suits, the dark holes of black lenses they were wearing over their eyes even at night. "Now, now, _now_..."

The landscape changes were not possible to really register in the dark, but the biggest change was how the cars just weren't there anymore behind them. The sound of the helicopter had gone, and-

Audrey raised her head to look ahead, and squinted. That was a city. Beyond the tree line were hazy lights, and the smoke of chimneys. The natural light of the moon shone dully off a few high-rise edges, though it lacked anything like the aerial profile of Heppa. "We're back," she breathed. "Duke - Nathan - We're back!"

They were silent. Nathan shifted uneasily in the front, next to her. There was a _thump_ as Duke's shoulders slapped back against the seat in the rear.

"I don't-" Nathan started, and stopped.

Duke was once more swearing softly.

Nathan tried again. "The last sixteen hours... This vehicle... My memory of what happened to us is... very strange." He turned around to Duke and flinched with an audible rattle. "My memory of _you_ is stranger still."

The flat disdain in his voice just about broke Audrey's heart.

" _Your_ memories are strange?" Duke choked. " _Mine_ are fucking... I can't even... I _kissed_ a freaking automaton? That's got to - even if it's _not_ just about the most pointless act in the universe, why would I ever even want to _touch_ some metal-assed clockwork drone-"

"Stop it!" Audrey begged. The engine was already starting to cough as she drew the car to a halt. _Damn it, damn it, damn it_... "Just stop! You need to think, and _listen_ , and we... We have to work together."

She clutched the dashboard edge tight and twisted around in her seat to face them both, even as the headlights started to flicker, still giving her light enough to catch the horror and hostility in their faces. "We need to talk."


	8. PART 3: Chapter 8

**Part 3**

 **8.**

The engines of the alien automobile had faded and died on the outskirts of the city, and the memories of that other world seemed to be fading as fast. Even when they had been new, when Nathan had first returned to _himself_ , they had been confused, out of context... but one thing stayed clear and stark in his mind.

He was supposed to be _real_. Nathan Wuornos was _supposed_ to be a living, breathing human being.

Which meant nothing for him could ever be the same again.

He felt locked into shock as he walked behind Duke and Audrey the rest of the way into the heart of the city. What would it be like to have skin in place of metal plate? To feel, the way living humans did? The 'real' Nathan hadn't been able to, anyway, not now, but he _once had_ , and that thought- To taste food, to _smell_? The truth was that there was something frightening and unsavoury about it all, as well as the tantalising promise of a world he'd never known could be his.

He'd... he'd never _thought_ about those things. Hadn't wanted or longed for them. He'd fought to be real as he was, had no dreams of being a real boy. He was what he was, and that was-

But if he _wasn't_?

At least in terms of their memories, Duke was in the same situation and had asked, twice in the last ten minutes, "What happened after the _Rouge_ crashed?" Neither of Audrey's answers had satisfied him, and he looked and sounded just as lost as Nathan felt.

"You both knew this would happen, or you figured out that something like this would happen," Audrey said, catching Duke's arm. "But neither of you hesitated to come back. It was very brave of both of you. I'm sure it will be okay." Her voice was soft. It softened further as she added tentatively, "My memory's screwed up, too."

"Right. So we're zero for three," Duke grumped, unhappily.

"It's fading," Nathan said, aiming to inject something hopeful. "Maybe we'll forget completely soon."

But Audrey exclaimed, dismayed, "You can't forget! When we were - when both of you were on the other side - it was so important to you that we came back to fix this!" She looked distressed enough to make Nathan sorry he'd spoken.

"I just meant that..." He stopped. Duke was frowning at him. "I don't _want_ to be a living person. It's not me."

"And I don't want to be locking lips - and more! - with an automaton cop," Duke growled.

"But your letters," Audrey protested.

Nathan's letter, written in his own rigid and heavy hand, seemed to weigh down his inside breast pocket, despite his sensory incapacity to feel it do any such thing. He waited until silence had descended again and the other two had pulled in front of him once more before he took it out. He glanced up often to check that the attention of Duke or Audrey did not stray back to him, and tried to keep his fingers quiet on the paper - which wasn't easy, when they were still clunky from the damage he had taken.

He re-read the words he had written to himself. It was easier in the pre-dawn grey than it had been to pick them out by moonlight or the alien automobile's strange lighting. The memory of writing the words was still hovering, but it felt unreal, ages old or belonging to someone else entirely.

It started off, _I'm not going to want to do this, but as an officer of the law in both worlds, it's my duty in either to work to put things right._ It was hard to try and muster argument with anyone who knew how his thought processes worked quite that well.

The letter meandered through a dry description of life as a police chief, a complexity of duties that did, in fact, make Nathan ache to be allocated so much responsibility and faith, a trust that would never be given a machine officer in this world. It continued to fondly describe a two decades long relationship with an automobile that certainly appealed to Nathan's interests, and then made a matter-of-fact statement about being in a relationship with the two people who walked side-by-side in front of him now, something that would only be possible for a being of flesh and blood. The ending paragraphs were a collection of statements to send a shiver through his workings:

 _Garland Wuornos wasn't some kind of patron, he was my father. Patched up my cuts and taught me how to eat without chewing my mouth when I lost the ability to feel at eight years old._

 _Audrey. She's immune to the Troubles. I can feel her; that's why her touch tingles like that. She's special, but I don't need to tell myself that in any world. I know I'll take care of her no matter what._

 _Take care of Duke, too._ _He's annoying and I know I won't want to, so that's the most important thing I can emphasize here. He's going to make it difficult, but ignore that. See if there's any way to get his ship back, if that's at all possible, too._

And finally: _I'm not going to want to do any of this, because I remember being inside my head before we came back to the normal world, but the one(s) controlling the Trouble are almost certainly behind the attempts to kill Audrey. That means they're breaking the law, and also my responsibility to deal with in either world_.

Nathan folded the page back over, skimmed the words _He was my father_ again, and returned the letter to his pocket.

Supposed humanity was a deflating thought after all the effort he'd put in trying to be, to the best of his capacity, exactly what he _was_.

The memories were fading and he did not want to dwell on them. The _Nathan_ who had written the letter was right: focusing on his duty was the best thing, and what he would hold on to. He had to hope that he would be able to perform his duties outside of Heppa. Duke had said that the city they were heading into was Breinor. There were basic treaties in place - extradition of criminals between the two city states and such arrangements - but Nathan had never had any dealings encompassing Breinor, and he did not know anything of the status of an automaton there. Only that Breinor was less advanced than Heppa, and so he was not optimistic.

The sun was coming up as they reached the inhabited streets. The question of his status and how the people here would react to him was about to become pertinent. It would have been far better, from his perspective, to enter the city under cover of darkness. No kind of gate or barrier existed at the city limits to keep anyone from wandering in, and the outer reaches of the settlement seemed more like a great, sprawling junk yard than anything else. Even so early, a few children climbed among the junk, ducking their heads up as their thin voices rose and fell curiously at the appearance of the three strangers. The sight of Nathan particularly excited their high shouts and pointing fingers.

He started as a trio of small, dusty figures ran out and circled him, daringly just out of reach, before diving back into the junk piles at the opposite side of the road. If this were a municipal refuse disposal site in Heppa, their being here would certainly be an infraction. If, as he very much feared from the state of them and the hour of the day, they were actually _living here_ , then the infraction was-

"Why are they-?" Three grubby heads, poking over the top of a dented wheel and a battered old door, giggling at him.

"-Not running away in terror?" Duke picked up sarcastically. "Because this is _not Heppa_. They don't make lawmen out of clockwork here."

 _Interested_ , was how Nathan had been intending to finish, but he supposed the answer was probably the same. Automata must be a less common sight in Breinor. He inclined his head dubiously to the children and lifted his hand in a small wave. He frowned, though, at Duke, walking ahead of him with his gaze craned back over one shoulder, still mocking, still bitter. "Do I terrify you, then?"

" _What_?"

"As a sample reaction," Nathan said patiently, "you must have plucked it from somewhere."

"I'm not eight years old," Duke said, with an edge to his voice, and turned his eyes to front again, ignoring Nathan with purpose.

Not now, but Nathan entertained the idea of him being small, grubby and loose on the streets of Heppa. Those children, unlike these, were always gone fast when they saw Nathan. He did not think Duke the right age to have been so young when automata were first introduced.

The junkyard outskirts turned to smoke-stained and cramped streets, tiny back-to-back houses piled almost on top of one another. From the scrunched-up expressions on Audrey and Duke's faces, the odour was considerable. The cobbles on the street were uneven under Nathan's feet, occasionally tripping him despite the maintenance to correct his rattled joints.

In a way, it was disappointing. The city did not look like Heppa, but there were parts of Heppa that looked like this, away from the high-rise docking towers. The streets there were darker, shaded out by the technological expanse above, hiding criminals and shady deals and squalor, while further out lay the houses of the more wealthy and the great shopping plazas and squares.

This city was merely faded and sad.

They _did_ reach a better area by the time traders were opening shop. Their clothing blended in well enough that it was only Nathan's clockwork form that seemed to attract attention, and the stares were interested rather than hostile. Nathan tried to smile back at the people, and particularly the children, and Duke cast him odd looks.

"What do you suggest we do?" Audrey asked Duke. "You said something about catching a train."

Nathan looked up in interest. He did not remember anything about a train, but Audrey and Duke had talked much on the journey while he was locked in his own thoughts.

Duke was nodding. "There's a main line across land to Heppa. It'll be a longer journey than it would be by air, but far easier and more anonymous than chartering a flight. The trains leave daily, while it could take us days to find an airship ready and willing to take passengers to Heppa."

Audrey said, "We should check the times of the train first thing, and make sure we can get tickets. If there's only one train per day..."

"It depends what you want to do," Duke said, looking over at Nathan. "Heppa's where the people are who want to kill you, after all. If you ask me, the idea that we need to track down and challenge them comes from pretty dubious sources. Plus, Nathan's probably going to arrest you the moment we're back in Heppa jurisdiction."

"I won't," Nathan said. "I know something strange is going on, and those orders are suspect to me now. Heppa is where we need to go to solve this."

"You'd say that anyway," Duke said, "because you want to be able to strut out your police authority again, Tin Can."

"My authority will help us solve this," Nathan said, annoyed, and wasn't sure why Duke let out a loud snort.

"You guys," Audrey cut in, her eyes weary. "We all agreed that we would go to Heppa. You don't remember the things you knew then, and I know it's difficult. Believe me, _I get that_. But you'd hate it if you could hear yourselves now. Trust me. Trust _you_. And I know this is going to sound crazy, but trust each other, because you guys, together..."

Duke gave a shudder and shook his head firmly. "Not a chance."

" _I'm_ going to Heppa," she responded, "because _I'm_ choosing to believe in you both, even though you don't believe yourselves anymore. You still have pieces of the memories left, don't you?" She looked between them, sparks of anger lighting her eyes. "You know what _happened_ on the other side of that wall. You didn't forget that, even if you forgot the things you remembered while you were over there. Well, I don't have _anything_ , but I'm taking what you told me and I'm going to Heppa."

"I am, too," Nathan said, venturing closer.

" _You_ don't win any points by that!" Duke griped. "You haven't been marked as a criminal. You haven't lost your livelihood. You're not _in danger_ there!"

"Which hopefully means I can help you both. Your airship-"

Duke scowled and shoved him away. "Don't try to _bribe_ me. The _Rouge_ is gone."

"Even if it's only myself and Nathan getting on the train," Audrey said crisply, "we need to check it out _now_."

There were signposts leading to the station, and even without those, the moving steam plume of an incoming train on the skyline, and the whistles and the echoing grind of the wheels, the chugging engine noises closer in, would have acted as guide. In this part of the city, the smoke seemed to have left its mark on everything. The buildings were black-stained and even the faces and clothing of the people were coated with that fine dust layer. Only the rich seemed to strut through the streets mostly untouched by a sediment of industry on their clothes and skin.

Inside the station, timetables clearly announced the train to Heppa was leaving at midday. Cars were available with sleeper accommodation, and Nathan didn't _sleep_ , but he had to admit the wisdom of paying for their own private space. Their journey to Heppa would take over twenty-four hours, in between stops, and their conversation was at the very least going to be peculiar to the other passengers.

Unhappily, Nathan read the list of charges and started searching through his pockets to count his tokens. He'd received most of his funds back from Audrey, but she had probably lost some of them crashing to the deck of the airship, followed swiftly after that by crashing to the ground. He wasn't sure if even before then he'd have had enough for a regular fare in the seating-only cars.

He continued to search empty pockets because, well, it was hard to search pockets with no sense of touch to feel out whether what he was looking for was really there, while Duke pulled a face at the coins sitting in his palm. "We're going to have to acquire some additional finances," Duke said. "There's no way we have enough to even bother thinking about this the way things are."

"How-" Nathan started, then the gears that motorised his jaw ground to a choking halt. "You mean _steal_."

Duke's hand slapped over Nathan's mouth. "You want to try and keep that _down_?"

Nathan didn't, particularly, and was about to give Duke a demonstration of how he could still form words with his mouth covered - sort of - when Audrey said, "If this world isn't real, then stealing doesn't matter, Nathan. What we're doing is what matters. So it's all right. We won't _really_ be putting anyone out of pocket. We're just doing our duty. Okay?"

Nathan nodded around Duke's hand and was released after a moment with a judgemental huff from Duke, who scrubbed his hand on his pants, as if Nathan possessed biological fluids to have contaminated it. "We need money by noon," Nathan said, ignoring him. "How are we going to do it?"

"Um. You're going to sit this one out," Audrey said. "I think that's probably for the best."

There was an older lady in a dress that made Audrey's look plain - deep russet orange silk and folds upon folds cascading down from her thighs to her booted heels - standing behind a gentleman paying for a fare at the desk. Nathan's chest clunked a bit as he saw that the figure standing behind her with armfuls of baggage was an automaton, a more recent model than himself, but at least in terms of crafting the outer appearance, technology hadn't developed enough to make them _look_ much different. It was mostly a matter of picking out the smoother manner of movement which meant the new jointing system was in place, putting him sometime within the last three years. He had a handsome head of hair and a sculpted face. His eyes swivelled to Nathan's, also recognising a fellow machine, but he did not react much otherwise.

"They do have automata here," Nathan said. Because he'd thought, from the reactions of the children and Duke, that perhaps they did not.

Duke followed his gaze. "Right. Rich assholes with their clockwork manservants. Talk about creepy mech fetishes."

Nathan couldn't see what prompted the disdain in his voice. It was true that it was a long way from Nathan's idea of a fulfilling role, but he was used to making an active impact upon the world as a policeman, and perhaps there were worthy aspects not immediately apparent to him. He had, after all, only known his own rigid role. It was probably Duke's disdain for automata in general-

"You're staring," Audrey murmured, nudging him.

Nathan turned his head to the side and stared less overtly. The other automaton was markedly less interested in him, giving his full attention to hanging behind his employer and the man in front of her.

Of course, _that_ was it, Nathan thought, catching himself. She was not an employer but an owner. This automaton was purchased property and not a citizen in their own right. That must be the source of Duke's contempt. Nathan frowned at the privateer, offended. The automaton servant was as real as Nathan was. If he was more advanced, he could be _more_ so. It was hardly _his_ fault where fate had placed him.

Duke's brows swivelled down and he frowned. "What's the matter?"

Audrey's swiftly hissed, " _Look_ ," sent their attention back to the party at the desk as cash exchanged hands. The man had taken out a great wad of notes and peeled from it to pay the fare. The rest... Duke and Audrey's eyes, Nathan did not fail to notice, were watching very closely when he stashed the bills back in his pocket.

"I need to get on that train," Duke said, as the man, woman and automaton peeled off toward the platform.

"That train's going to Cavapp," Nathan protested.

"No, I- I just need a ticket." The party of three was headed toward the standing locomotive, where a guard on the door of the carriages was checking tickets. "I'm not going there. 155 tokens. What have you got?"

Nathan unhappily presented the contents of his pockets that Duke had scoffed at before. Duke was going to get on the train to steal the money they'd just seen. In the confusion and crush of boarding, while man and automaton were arranging the woman's luggage, would be a perfect opportunity. Nathan knew how pickpockets worked. But Duke scraped his tokens up along with those that Audrey offered, and it was going to take everything they had between them so, perverse as it was, Nathan very much hoped that Duke succeeded. He watched the other man dash to the desk and grab a fast ticket, then sprint to leap aboard, flashing the ticket at the guard.

Nathan looked uncertainly at Audrey. The train left at 9AM, and that was very close. There was nobody else now still hanging around on the platform delaying getting aboard, and the guard was locking up, to retreat to the van at the back.

"He'll be all right," Audrey said, although she seemed nervous, and that wasn't improved by the train continuing to show obvious preparations to leave, and then slowly starting to move out of the station.

"Duke!" Nathan exclaimed, dismayed, taking a step toward the train. They had to get on board, get him _out_. If they were separated-

Actually, he wasn't sure why that would automatically strike him as such a bad thing. Perhaps it was because Duke had just taken all the cash that they had, and the two of them left were not _thieves_.

Audrey caught his shoulder. "No, we'll wait."

Then Duke was there, standing where the train had departed. He'd emerged from somewhere close to the back, near the guard's van, though Nathan couldn't fathom how. He walked swiftly back to them, his hand on a lump in his trousers.

Audrey raised her eyebrows. "Kind of hoping that worked and you're _not_ just pleased to see us."

"No, we're good. I'm still pretty pleased, though." Duke grinned back at her. "We need to go shopping. Suitcases, nightwear, personal supplies for an overnight train. Better clothes, maybe. Some of this crowd might be a bit more upmarket than I was bargaining on."

"Breakfast first," Audrey sighed, with obvious yearning.

"That, too."

Nathan trailed behind them, feeling like a spare part as they first ate breakfasts and drank teas that he did not partake of, and then as they hit a string of clothes shops. They bought suitcases first, and worked upon filling them as they went. It all seemed so _unnecessary_. So gleeful and sordid, wasting their stolen money when the clothes they were wearing already should have been adequate.

"No, I- I'm fine." Nathan raised his hands and backed off as Duke tried to persuade him to buy another outfit. There wasn't time to be properly fitted, but that wasn't why. He watched Duke pick out things that he suspected were for him anyway.

He grew short-tempered as he became increasingly aware of what it _looked like_ , as he followed after them hauling most of the bags. More so still when Duke acknowledged it with a grin and the comment, "I guess your existing style of dress fits that role pretty well," which made him feel foolish and wish that, all this time, he had made different stylistic choices.

Duke, by that point, was clad in a much finer fitted suit, still brown, though the fabric was more textured, and he'd not chosen to go the route of the predominantly grey or black suited gentlemen, keeping to a rustic style of his own. He still _looked_ expensive, and Audrey was clearly enjoying her new dress, even though to Nathan's eyes it wasn't as decorative or as expensive as the other, and he suspected she'd chosen it for ease of movement, which, well, might be a worthwhile choice. But they had also spent a ridiculous interval hanging around in a lingerie shop while she looked at underwear and Duke had grinned around at the merchandise like a loon.

"Shit," said Duke, as he urged them down a street toward what he promised was one last shop. He was eying his new gold pocket watch. "We should have done this sooner. We don't have so long now."

"Let's just make it quick," Nathan grit, and then stared as they stopped in front of a parts shop.

"Your arm's still broken," Audrey said. "We need the parts to fix it."

Nathan must have missed that conversation. He _had_ been beginning to tune them out and look at the unfamiliar city in more detail instead. He supposed he was grateful that they'd remembered, and rationalized to himself that the pieces they needed wouldn't be any more expensive than the tokens that Duke had taken from him to buy that original ill-intentioned ticket.

"We do need to be quick, though," Duke said, a bit guiltily. "Let me take those..." He grabbed the bags from Nathan, letting Nathan and Audrey ahead of him through the door.

The fellow behind the counter in the shop had a strange expression as he answered Nathan's questions and helped him gather up the pieces he needed. They were fortunate to find a spare plate that fit perfectly on Nathan's arm, replacing the damaged one. They were able to dispense with the bandages as they left the shop, though they had not had time to fix the arm's inner workings, and it was unpleasant for Nathan to consider how the new plate must have been salvaged from another automaton so damaged he'd been junked and stripped for parts.

They had more than enough spare screws and the correct gears to complete the arm repair later, and that improved Nathan's mood. He was at least pleased that the bandaging which announced him as _broken_ was gone, even if it had been mostly hidden by his sleeve.

"That guy was a dick," Duke said, strangely angry as they left the store. "Don't pay any attention to that. You're not property."

"We need to get back to the station," Nathan said, and took most of the bags back from Duke, reluctantly, because if automatons were servitors here, then even if he didn't like it, holding up the facade would attract less attention.

They were quieter for the duration of that journey, though they _were_ hurrying. They paid for two separate cabins on the sleeper train and were just in time to get their luggage and themselves aboard before the train started making preparations to leave. Audrey did nothing beyond throw her suitcase into her cabin and follow Duke and Nathan into theirs.

Nathan wasn't thrilled by the idea of sharing such close quarters with Duke, but the fact he didn't sleep rendered it ridiculous to request space of his own, and it didn't seem appropriate to put himself in with Audrey, so he was stuck with it. Hopefully Duke's suddenly less hostile attitude would linger.

Accommodation aside, this should be easy now. They were aboard, the train ran direct to Heppa, and all they had to do was while away the hours in between. Once they were in Heppa, Nathan wouldn't have to feel so _useless_ or be assumed by everyone who laid eyes upon him to be an expensive servant, or worse, _accessory_.

They had been handed a sheet filled with fine embossed print when they paid for their tickets, which included an itinerary of where the train stopped - one stop of a few hours, where they were permitted to disembark - and the times and menus for the food served in the dining car. There was also a note about a bar, with entertainment and gaming later in the evening.

"Picking out whether to have the duck a l'orange or the salmon?" Duke asked. He grimaced at Audrey. "I hate to say it, but it's probably best if I pretend he belongs to me. It's just going to attract a lot of scandalous attention, if a young woman like you..." He grinned at her.

"I can't say I much care," Audrey said, startled.

"No, but it _would_ draw attention," Duke countered, bemused. "We can all just pretend he's my butler. Huh, Tin Man?"

"I don't see what difference it makes," Nathan said, irked, thinking that they were making much out of little. What did it matter which one he belonged to? He was repulsed by the idea of having to belong to anyone at all.

There was one of those sorts of silences that just hung, and then a quiet snort of laughter from Duke, like he was trying to stifle it.

"Don't," Audrey told him warningly.

"I'm _not_ \- seriously, you don't get it?" Duke demanded flatly to Nathan, apparently really not able to resist.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Though the fact it was 'funny' did carry a number of pre-suggested options from Nathan's observations of people's - certainly Duke's - sense of humour.

"You know, I wondered why you were so pissy about stealing from those bastards. I mean, hell, I'd have figured them for valid targets so far as you were concerned, considering that _you're_ sentient, so by extension that guy back there should be." Duke's humour had evaporated to a kind of anxious dismay now. "If I say 'high end recreational companion' am I still being an asshole?" He was looking at Audrey's expression. "Shit, _someone_ has to tell him!"

"Sex," Audrey said, her brows drawing together in a little bit of puzzlement herself, like it was more realisation than explanation for her. "You know, I wondered earlier if that was what you were getting at, but... Do they really use automata for that?" She gestured at Nathan and winced a little in apology. "They're all hard surfaces, no matter how pretty you make them look."

"I'm not-" Nathan was still mostly stuck on the first blunt word, but some of his thoughts were the same as Audrey's. "How- _why_ would they?"

"Well, _I_ wouldn't," Duke said, "so don't ask me. I'm not too sure on the 'how', either, since you clearly-" He gestured at Nathan, who felt oddly removed from the whole conversation. "Well, _I_ wouldn't put my delicate parts near that trap of a metal jaw or-" His gaze travelled lower but fixed on Nathan's gloved hand and he stopped.

Hazy memories rose up, and Nathan now _knew_ Duke remembered the same things he did, though not everything associated with why they should have come to be wrapped together in that bed, in that embrace. Nathan avoided both of their gazes and took himself out of the way to sit in the cabin's single chair. He looked down at his knees and the texture of the floor between them.

"Sorry," Duke said, unbidden, and startling him, added a bit desperately, "Look, if this isn't _real_ , and you _are_ , then it doesn't _matter_."

"None of this conversation is helping," Audrey said. "Nathan, we'll fix your arm properly, okay? Then we can think about what else we need to be doing."

"Yeah," Duke said, with a note of relief. "Let's do that."

Nathan had felt a little alarmed, but mostly _perplexed_ by the memory of that event in the hotel room - with Duke - until now. He'd even taken some satisfaction in Duke's evident horror of having been so intimate with an automaton, for surely it was only a bizarre incident that meant nothing to himself. Now, suddenly it seemed shameful that he had allowed any such thing. He was a policeman, not a - a -

" _Nathan_. Why don't you sit on the bed." Duke had his shoulder. "It'll be easier-"

" _No_ ," said Nathan. He wrenched his arm away from Duke and very nearly struck him, but got a hold of himself in time.

Duke made an exclamation of startled anger. "For _repairs_ , you bone-headed heap of _junk_ , I'm not making a play for your virtue!"

"Nathan?" Audrey sounded worried. "I can do it if you don't want Duke to. Please. We didn't mean to hurt you."

Nathan had already stopped still. Her concern only solidified the state. "You can't hurt me," he said. "I over-reacted. It's okay." He stiffly sat on the edge of the bed and lay his broken hand down next to him.

After a moment, Duke waggled a finger at his own chest and asked a question with his eyebrows, then when Nathan didn't tell him not to, sank down close by on the bed. He took up the parts and tools they'd purchased from the last shop and started to pry the new arm casing loose again.

Audrey heaved a sigh and flopped onto the chair Nathan had vacated. She held her head with both hands and muttered a small sound of pain.

"Are you all right?" Nathan asked despite himself, looking away from Duke and the inner workings of his hand.

"It's still sore when I touch it. The rest of the time, it's - I'd almost forgotten." She gave a wry laugh. "It _is_ getting better, I just wish the _effects_ of it would!"

"Your memory's more reliable than ours are, at the moment," Duke said.

"That doesn't help." She lifted her head. "You two... help me here, okay? The freaking out doesn't help me. The _fighting_ sure as hell doesn't help me. You were _into_ each other, and it sucks that this place has done this to you, but you _can_ trust-" She gulped and shut up.

"I really want to trust you," Duke said, voice hoarse and low, and when Nathan turned, he was unsettled to find this statement was aimed at himself. Now it came to Nathan that he'd both stolen the fare for them and then made no more resistance when it came to actually getting on the train, and he had not wanted to go to Heppa at all.

Nathan just nodded. He didn't trust himself to speak. But thinking of being real didn't make him feel happy about anything, so he settled for telling himself to be a policeman. He'd do as he was supposed to, and solve this, even if people thought he was- Would they still think he was there to service Duke, if he were pretending to be Duke's rather than Audrey's? Considering that he _had_ serviced Duke, he found it difficult to dismiss the idea. Surely, _surely_ people still bought automata for other purposes. He could be a bodyguard or a butler or both and _just that_.

And if people took the idea that things were otherwise, it was inconsequential. He wasn't even a _servant_. He was a policeman, undercover.

A metal gear rang against the shell of his arm as Duke fumbled it. He muttered an apology and picked it up, to set it into place securely this time. Nathan sighed and made himself inspect the work Duke had done. He couldn't see any mistakes, but he should have been paying attention.

He focused on watching the gears being put back into functional place inside his arm, one by one, and not on Duke himself. Duke carefully didn't look up at him again while he worked, either.

"How is it?" Duke asked eventually, sitting back, the plate still lying loose on the bed, but the gears inside the arm back in place.

Nathan waggled his fingers. They all moved in time with his command, in perfect sync again, but he still felt completely disconnected from them.


	9. Chapter 9

**9.**

Fixing the arm jangled Duke's every last nerve. He kept recalling yesterday and a maintenance session that had felt more like a sex act. He could only remember what he'd thought and felt _while_ he was that guy, and not the history and context that went with it, and that made things difficult to recall at all... But the associations kept coming back as he rolled the little gears around in his fingers and gripped his other hand around the screwdriver's handle.

Yesterday, the metal body that focused his attention had been alive and alert with a reluctant receptiveness, although still metal. Today it was rigid and lifeless, unresponsive as though Wuornos was holding himself in for all he was worth.

Duke had a letter... two letters... _three, damn it_ , and the last he was afraid to open, and had left it where it was, burning a hole in his breast pocket with the others. The two he'd read elucidated more or less the same thing, by two inarguably different hands: that there was something between himself and the automaton, something real and big, that he couldn't ignore however much he wanted to.

Nathan's letter was actually the easier. It said, in words scored deeply into the paper, formed with the uncertainty of someone who wasn't used to manipulating a mechanical hand:

 _You're the one who wanted to write letters and it seems like I have the time now, while you and Audrey snore, so here you go._

 _I'm not a machine. I'm as human as you are. In fact, we grew up together, and one time I even broke my arm sledding and you took me to the hospital. Plenty of real blood, and real bone sticking out, too. I don't know if any memories will make it through, but that one has as good a chance as any. Aside from that, we've been intimate enough that you damned well know I'm made of flesh and blood. Your Pinocchio jokes don't count._

 _I'm still a policeman, that much this Trouble got right. Even there, it threw in a demotion - that's CHIEF of police, damn it, though I can anticipate how your alternate is going to love that revelation. But try bear it in mind when you're being an ass about the clockwork transformation. There's a world where I decide what is and isn't a valid parking ticket, Duke._

 _Love, N._

Duke had brushed the pad of his thumb over those final two words, wondering. Most of the letter was dry, and slightly cranky, and not exactly aiming for heavy emotional appeal. But the fact he'd chosen that manner to sign off was something Duke found hard to ignore. It was written less tidily and scored deeper than the other words, as though Nathan had hesitated and then just gone for it, gouging the word 'love' before he could change his mind.

Duke figured that even if the real thing was, well, _real_ , it said something about someone's personality if they could be translated into a collection of metal and gears. Signing _love_ was an act of significance.

Nathan's letter, he could have dealt with. Nathan's letter either knew what it was fucking doing and had the forethought not to freak him out with the details, or - more likely - the personality of its writer leaned toward those reserved tendencies anyway.

The _other_ letters were a different matter. He'd found them while getting changed into the new outfits when they were shopping, though he hadn't had time to think about reading them until they were waiting for Audrey to be fit into that dress she'd bought and Nathan was standing in a huff surrounded by baggage. The letters were slightly wrinkled, as though the paper had been damp when they were written. The writing was scrawled and hurried. He had a recollection of writing them in a bathroom when he didn't have very much time.

The letter he'd opened and read, the one addressed to _him_ , was nothing but details. It was like he'd written it with the specific aim to freak himself the fuck out. What had he been thinking, or had he even _been_ thinking, when he wrote a pornographic treatise on the qualities of the real Nathan Wuornos' ass? Okay, there was a line or two in there about his eyes, but mostly it was the ass. And the absolute priority, apparently, of returning it to its full flesh and blood living perfection.

Then again, considering he _had_ written it in the shower, and what had taken place before that, maybe he'd just been hellishly horny.

The semi-relevant part was in agreement with the real Nathan's input on the subject: _He's everything you think except that he's real and none of it matters. You've known him forever and loved him almost as long, so try not to be too much of a dick to him, even if you don't remember._

Audrey hadn't escaped the attention, though the comments about her were both more restrained to start with and accompanied with for-the-love-of-everything-don't-show-this-to-her type pleas. Why he'd thought it was so important to protect her and but had felt free to land this mindfuck on _himself_ , Duke couldn't imagine.

But that was the other part of this Duke couldn't quite get a grip on, Nathan's metal ass aside - how the three of them were together and that _worked_ somehow. He'd done threesomes, but they'd always ended with a quick "bye" in the morning before things could get complicated. Then again, apart from Evi, that was mostly how he'd done twosomes as well.

And how, _how_ to take on board this revelation that their lives _weren't real_? This, everything he'd seen and done and felt, wasn't _real_. His childhood - were his real parents as shitty as the ones he remembered? Was everything somehow equivalent but askew? Nathan had said he was still a cop.

The idea of nothing ever having been real _hurt_ , and that didn't make sense because, well, his crappy childhood had been crappy, and he'd dragged himself out of it and at least done something with his life, but it wasn't as though he'd ever had the breaks, and he'd pretty much figured he'd trade it in at the drop of a hat. But... where did that leave him, if all that hardship had been for nothing? If it was some kind of magically imposed memory instead of a _life_?

Feeling cheated as hell, he thought, that was where. He figured he understood how Nathan felt about the idea of _not_ being a mechanical man who badly wanted to be taken seriously as a person in his own right. Audrey, with her confusion and her absent memory, didn't deserve to be left picking up after their freakouts, though, when she already had plenty to contend with.

It was a relief to finish the work on Nathan's hand, screw the plate on over the operational limb, and be able to turn away.

The train had been moving, gathering up speed since he'd started work on the hand, forcing him to compensate for the occasional shake. The terrain around Breinor wasn't exactly arduous or exciting, and he'd been too absorbed to pay much attention to the land they were headed through either way, though Audrey's gaze had long since drifted to the window. Nathan stood and fastened his cuff back down over his mended wrist, and Duke avoided looking at him because the automaton's aura of depression made him feel unaccountably shitty.

Duke had a strong urge to be moving, doing, and _elsewhere_. "We should go see what's on offer on this train. Long journey ahead. I didn't bring a book to read, did you?" He faked looking askance at the other two. His books were in the downed _Cape Rouge_ with everything else he owned.

"We should stay here," Nathan said dully. "Safer to keep to ourselves in our cabins."

"For you, maybe," Duke said, his annoyance with the automaton rising again. "I guess it's easier when you can stand in the closet and switch off for thirty-two hours. The rest of us who need to eat will at least have to venture out for dinner." He touched Audrey's arm - she was regarding the automaton with concern. "He doesn't have to come with us. Let's check out the entertainment car."

Nathan's head came up. "Looking to cheat at cards again?"

A spark of life. Duke grinned, even though the question hadn't been friendly. "I might be."

"I guess that's more honest than outright stealing the money." It was amazing that the tension in how Nathan held his metal body could so clearly give off those vibes of righteous indignation, but beyond doubt he did that extremely well. "Fine, then. I'll stay here."

From the looks he'd been getting for his uppity behaviour, before, it probably was for the best. "Okay, you chill while we go do our thing."

Audrey said with a particular intensity, "It doesn't matter what they _think_ you are. You _know_ what you are. What the others are doesn't reflect on you. Especially if you're real."

Nathan averted his gaze and didn't reply before she let Duke tug her out of the room. Duke's frustration burst out as soon as the door clicked to behind them, even though they likely weren't out of earshot. "That's all we need! A freaking depressed automaton!"

"He's had a shock to his world view," Audrey said, disapprovingly.

"We've all had _that_."

She squinted up at him. "Probably the one-two punch of his is a bit more extreme. We're both still human."

The train rocked their steps, jogging them from side to side along the lush wood-panelled corridor of the sleeper car. There were voices from some of the rooms, murmurs or louder laughter. Most of the light fed in through windows at strategic points in recesses between the rooms. Though there were gas lamps on the walls to eliminate the darkest corners, they were currently unlit, making it dingy and cramped. The land going past the windows was grey with coal dust and scarred from mining, and it was raining. Dust motes floated in the air inside the carriages, and they had the musty smell of not being aired often enough.

Train wasn't Duke's preferred mode of travel and a lot of this was new to _him_. He'd occasionally been forced to get on a train for short hops, to make deals in places where it wasn't financially or physically practical to take the _Rouge_ , but this line was nothing like those of his experience.

Contrary to what Nathan probably thought, he didn't usually risk stealing large sums of money from the grossly rich in so casual a fashion. People like that had influence and pursued their grudges, and it was far too chancy. But the situation had warranted action and like hell was he going to show doubt in front of the clockwork cop. Better to be taken for a great crook than a petty one, anyway, and Nathan was probably still going to arrest him at the end of this for either infringement.

That was the problem with automata. No discernment. No sense of _scale_.

To get through to the entertainment car, Duke and Audrey had to bypass the dining car via a narrow passageway. His attention pulled that way by a metallic clamour and the sound of voices, Duke caught a glimpse through the glass window in the door at the end. Waitresses were setting up tables but Duke spotted something else that caused his heart to jump horribly in his chest.

Cops. Real cops - flesh and blood ones, anyway. Breinor's, from the uniforms. He _noticed_ cops, alright? Two of them were talking to the Maitre D'. Duke didn't know how they'd got aboard, hadn't seen them on the platform before they left, but then they _had_ been running late when they boarded the train.

Paranoia about that stolen wad of money returned full force.

Audrey stumbled into him in the narrow passage, and his pause at that window really had taken too long. He made himself move. Audrey's small, steadying hand on his shoulder became a point of focus he was deeply grateful for.

"What's the matter?" she whispered, waiting until they were well away from the open doorway.

"We need to lose the money," Duke said. "And I mean _lose_ it. At the cards tables - get a good spread around the other guests. We need to do it _now_."

"You think the bills are traceable?" she asked.

"I don't know." He'd pushed down his misgivings about that thick, new wad of cash at the time. If it had come straight from the bank, those bills could be new-minted, sequential, _known_. With such a large monetary theft, of course they'd notify the police. Since the theft had occurred in the station, they'd probably checked with the ticket desk first thing. Maybe they'd been able to figure out from the amount of suspect bills the ticket desk had just exactly which fare the thieves had paid, how many of them they were, and which train they were on... "We can't risk it."

Lunch was to be served late, at 2pm, in concession to the late leaving time. That gave him just over an hour and a half to get to work disseminating suspect cash throughout the passengers on board the train. Blowing an unreasonable amount quickly would only draw attention, so he had to be smarter than that. Try to move around the money rather than outright lose. Win back some honest cash so they weren't out of pocket.

The games tables weren't an ideal environment at the moment, less densely populated than they would be later, but he needed to start this as soon as possible if the cops were going to search and question passengers… Duke headed for the most lively game and peeled some bills from the remnant of the wad in his pocket to offer up with a sly smile. "Room for one more?"

He started by matching the bets of the other players before injecting some subtle encouragement to go higher - subtle enough that he hopefully would not be remembered as the one to advocate it. At first he played conservatively to win, and used sleight of hand to tuck winnings away in a different pocket to the bills he needed to lose. It was more than enough pocket change - even the starting bets were large, comparable with the amounts he usually only saw moving an airship full of cargo around. After upping the stakes, he set about a subtle losing streak that hopefully wasn't too extreme to stand out if anyone was questioned about who'd lost big. Once the suspect bills were in the game, winning didn't benefit his goals.

Audrey hung off his arm and was kind of doing her best, but he had a pretty good idea that she wasn't these folks' idea of a lady. In fact, there was a significant chance that this crowd would take her to be with him for, well, immoral purposes. Even perhaps that she'd been _hired_ to accompany him for immoral purposes.

Much as he probably shouldn't wait for someone to make that assumption and provoke Audrey's wrathful reaction to it, there was _no chance_ he was broaching the subject himself.

Duke was a sociable guy, but still he was unprepared for when the game hit a sort of rhythm and his fellow players started making conversation. The gentleman on Duke's left... _was_ a gentleman, and that was probably all of the problem in a nutshell. Clothes impeccably tailored and with an upturn to his nose, slick, smooth hair and thin, soft hands moving over the cards, he looked like he hadn't done a day's work in his life. There was definitely a judgemental sneer on his lips for Duke. The fellow eventually made himself ask, in an effort at civility, "So, are _you_ journeying to Heppa for business or pleasure?"

The man across the table answered robustly before Duke could open his mouth. He was short and stocky, wearing an over-decorative ruffled shirt, with an expansive style of his own and brighter clothes than everyone else present. It seemed he had little care for fashion and every care to enjoy his money as he pleased. "Nobody but you would go to Heppa for pleasure, Aspen! Maybe you've never been before, eh? They hound out 'pleasure' there! Probably a law against it!" He elbowed Duke in friendly conspiracy.

Duke could get behind that gripe, for sure. "I think there _is_. Watch yourself, walking around with that attitude. Why, the last time I was there, they almost arrested my girl!" He slipped an indicative arm around Audrey's shoulders and jogged her fondly. "And do you know what? We to this _day_ don't have a clue why!"

He managed to bury the "oof" as she punched him under the table.

"They're quite against any fun at all," his ally agreed, eyes sparkling.

"I was never arrested," Audrey said, letting her annoyance show. "They had no _cause_."

"My dear," declared Mrs Murphy, whose first name remained a mystery to Duke, but possibly to the rest of the table as well. "I'm sure they did not." She was dressed in dark colours with few frills in evidence and only a little relatively plain jewellery. She was travelling alone but for her maid, which had been remarked upon by two of the men, and Duke was leaning toward the theory she was a widow, but couldn't be sure. Perhaps she was only a widow to her husband's interests. She spoke to Audrey in an arch tone that hinted her thoughts didn't tally with the words spoken, but they contained less judgement than Duke might have feared. She looked at the man identified as Aspen. "I, too, am going to Heppa for sightseeing purposes, Charlie. The towers are remarkable, and word has it there are several new automated public art installations since my last visit, though I must say that the old ones were well worth a repeat visit in themselves."

Duke felt his view of Heppa take a sideways jar. "Really, the towers?" It slipped out almost without thought. "I always thought them useful, but ugly."

"Progress is never ugly," Charlie Aspen said.

Duke couldn't quite work out how to respond to that with diplomacy before Mrs Murphy laughed without restraint and flicked her hand in dismissal. " _Coal_ is the ugliest thing of all. Steam is ugly! Now we exist coated in dust, with the sky dulled and grey, but we embrace it anyway, for the advantages." She slapped down her cards. "If any of you boys can beat that, I'll eat my hat."

The brightly dressed man did, but nobody called her on the promise. Instead, he remarked as he shuffled the cards, "I am going to Heppa for business. Coal, as it happens, has its benefits."

"I didn't dispute it," she responded tartly. "And I am well aware of where your business interests lie, Mr Rush."

Duke had to stop his head from jerking around too sharply. He knew the name. Arnold Rush controlled half the coal mining and haulage this side of Heppa. That he had made his fortune from business probably singled him out from most of the other occupants at their table.

Audrey noticed his reaction and her eyes conducted a subtle, searching scan of both himself and Rush. She settled for asking, "How do you enjoy working in coal, Mr Rush? Your suit looks pretty clean to me."

He grinned back. "The ones I wear on site are not. It's a dingy business, but has been kind for me, apart from a persistent and tedious cough." He returned his attention to Duke. "Where does your business lie?"

Duke supposed no-one had to be particularly astute to tell that he did not come from money. "Airships," he said. Over the next few minutes, the Crocker Airship Co. was born, along with the tale of the company flagship downed in a pirate attack. Less strictly true, he made the addition of their need to travel to Heppa to retrieve the downed craft and fill in the relevant paperwork. "I'd be flying to Heppa, if it wasn't for that loss. I'm hoping enough repairs can be made for us to fly back."

"Pirates are so _tedious_ ," Mrs Murphy exclaimed, in the kind of voice she might use to comment about the weather. "You hear about such things happening more and more."

"I can not fly," said Aspen with a shudder. "Give me the rail any day."

"I have heard," said Morris Wastra, coming back into the conversation and the game from his semi-doze with a burst of speech interrupted by a hiccup as the table politely ignored his state of inebriation before lunch, "that there are even bandits on the rails these days."

"A train was stopped in Querul," Mrs Murphy said, nodding, and the conversation turned to a resounding condemnation of criminal activity that had Duke trying not to squirm in his seat. Audrey was punching him under the table again, though it was entirely possible others would take her subtle movements as something else.

Several more people wandered into the entertainment car and the game expanded, allowing Duke to further spread his dirty money about.

"Do you see that man?" Mrs Murphy leaned over and hissed to Audrey, who she seemed unexpectedly to have taken to as a female ally.

"The large man? With long black hair? He looks familiar..."

Duke had never seen the man before, though he was aware a stir of interest had been created when he'd entered the car. "Who is he?"

"That's Bradley Lock, the inventor."

Duke's eyebrows raised. Like Rush, he'd heard the name. He himself had noticed the man mostly because he had an automaton stationed at his shoulder, dressed to the nines as a butler. Duke had kind of hoped they wouldn't see any more. As an elbow decoration, they were expensive and rare, and the tin cop was already having a clockwork meltdown. Still, looking at this one did make him think how much more animated and human Nathan was by comparison.

Duke had never previously thought about how Heppa gave their police automata lives, homes, educations, hobbies. He was weirded out by that thought suddenly landing on him, while he looked at _this_ automaton.

The man, Lock, didn't look like much, though the people nearest him seemed to be particularly fawning. He was stressing the seams of an expensive frock coat and his hair was long and curled. He raised his head and their eyes connected before Duke could duck his gaze. Lock's face flickered strangely, then wiped clear and he beamed and raised a hand. "Mr Crocker, is it not? Come, come, join me in a drink!"

Duke looked around his own table in an apologetic fashion which hopefully conveyed that he was sure the company was better _here_ , but politeness demanded he accept the invitation.

Chance to spread his suspect money among even more of the passenger roster, he supposed.

He wasn't sure how Lock had found out his name, but the gossip had to spread like wildfire in this closed environment. Probably he should get used to everyone knowing his name, plus everything else that left his lips, while they were aboard the train.

Audrey planted her feet and clenched her fingers on his arm as he rose. She whispered urgently, "I... That man he... This _familiarity_ , it's... I have a _bad_ feeling about that man, Duke." Her eyes squeezed shut and she pressed her fingers to her head, close to the fading marks of her head injury.

He patted her fingers and covered for her. "Let's be polite and mingle." If Lock was someone dangerous and was somehow involved, it was probably better to play along and not reveal that they suspected. Duke had a creeping feeling about the man, too. Something in his eyes...

The press of fawners around Lock parted to let them in at the table. Two chairs vacated like magic. Duke glanced back and happened to catch Mrs Murphy's expression. He thought it looked dubious rather than envious.

"My good fellow. Airships, isn't it?" There was something sarcastic, biting, buried in the depths of that, not anywhere near openly enough to register on anyone not in the know. Duke quickly scanned back through his memory for _anything_ about meeting this man before, but there was no real nagging familiarity, even though he'd swear in that moment that Lock absolutely _knew_ the Crocker Airship Co. consisted of himself and one out-of-commission vessel. "And... the lady." His gaze fixed on Audrey too intently, with a hint of anxiety that seemed to dissolve at her responding pale, blank expression.

"Mr Lock, I hear," Duke rallied. "You seem to have a reputation."

"Not always the best of things. You _do_ have a taste for fine machines, I noted. Did I see you with an N322 class automaton, out on the platform earlier?"

Duke had no idea what Nathan's technical designation was. "I guess that's true," he hazarded, and when Lock made a show of looking around, added, "He's cranky. The pile of bolts decided to stay in the cabin."

Maybe he'd admitted too much, but the truth made it harder to get caught in a lie, and if he positioned Nathan as defective from the start, maybe his less than subservient behaviour would be shrugged off when he finally ventured out.

Lock's eyes gleamed a bit. "An interesting choice, that series. Do you know how many of their features have since been discontinued? They _learn_ a little too well. Almost the only buyer that seemed to regret the decision to scale back was Heppa municipal state."

"Really?" Duke managed not to sound like he was choking the word out, but his breath had just deserted him. Oh, this bastard knew. But _how much_ did he know, and _how_? "That would explain a few things, but no, I did not know that. Picked him up recently at an auction." He eyed the stiff, expressionless automaton behind Lock. "To be truthful, I'd sworn never to own one, but he seemed to have a bit more about him." He made a laughing play of taking a step back from Lock's clockwork butler. "It's their stare that freaks me out."

Lock's smile twitched. "Yes. A pity about the face. Human musculature is an amazing thing... and the human eye! Impossible to truly duplicate in artificial materials."

"You're saying they scaled them down to something _less_ because they were too human?" Audrey spoke up, her voice almost enraged. "But that's… so sad." Duke could see her hesitate, and opt to choose a lesser word, one the person she was purporting to be might use, and swallow most of her outrage. "Does he have an opinion on that?" She leaned forward and fixed her eyes on the butler. " _Do_ you?" She searched his face, waiting for some kind of response to gage how much he was like Nathan.

"I do not," the automaton said.

"Butler shares my opinions," Lock said. "A more recent model than yours, perhaps, but he _has_ been with me since new."

Duke shrugged. The emphasis on that suggested there was an insult buried in it, but he hardly cared. He didn't own Nathan, so no skin off his nose. Besides, if this guy _did_ know that Nathan was really a Heppa cop-

Audrey was still working on the automaton, morosely testing him for humanity with her eyes. Duke elbowed her. "Well, shall we play cards?" He reached for his money, prepared to lose another wad.

Did Lock know about the money? Duke thought uneasily. He _might not_. Duke didn't know the source of Lock's information. If he really was some kind of genius, perhaps it was crazy guesswork. If he was in league with the people who were hunting Audrey, and knew she'd been on Duke Crocker's airship with one of Heppa's police automata, it still did not mean he knew about the money or had any links with the police Duke had seen on the train.

Lock grinned and let the game resume. Audrey was tense at Duke's side, and he knew she wanted to leave. He might be able to excuse himself after one game, but staying for a few more would be better for appearances.

"Unlucky," Lock declared as he scraped the winnings in. He didn't play like a genius. Duke had had to cheat to lose.

"I'll catch up in the next game," Duke said.

Audrey was glaring at him. "Next time, I'm playing," she said crisply, to cover it up. "His luck has been horrible today," she told Lock.

Lock looked amused. Duke shifted as a few of the fawning gentlemen snickered at the declaration.

Lock made a few neutral comments about automaton technology that Duke didn't fully understand, while Duke proceeded to lose the next game and promised himself he'd make the third game the last. "We really must go freshen up for lunch, after this," he said, primarily to Audrey, but added a smirk for the audience, "If I lose this next game, I really will give you my bank."

The man to the right of Lock dealt the cards and Duke had his ready to put down when Lock said, in a low, silky voice projected at just him, "They say it's a cruelty to use the N322 for more _subservient_ purposes, with that level of sentience. Still, I can't help but admit some curiosity. I don't usually lend Butler out, but I might be tempted to propose a temporary trade..."

Duke felt his jaw drop. He surely hadn't heard that right, or at least _interpreted_ that right. Lock couldn't have meant that- Dimly, his brain registered Audrey's snapped response of, "No, that's not happening," and the snickers of the hangers-on sounded surreal. _Un_ real.

"No. Thank you." He bit off the words, hoping he made them sound enough like an insult. He dropped his cards without looking at them, nor anyone else's. "We'll excuse ourselves now."

Lock's brows went up, unapologetic. "Did I misread you? So easily done. Of course, if yours _is_ a refurbished Heppa municipal automaton then he might not be equipped for that kind of use. Who knows how they strip them down, there?" His hangers-on tittered, though Duke had the impression most of them didn't know what they were laughing at. Lock had... had assumed he was a part of some secret club? A clockwork fetish underground? Was _that_ where he'd been angling from all along? To think Duke had figured that if he claimed Nathan belonged to him that would _alleviate_ the potential for scandalous assumptions...

"Come on," he said to Audrey, getting up, angry and making little effort to hide it. _Now_ he knew how Nathan felt... Although probably it was a different angle on the situation to be considered the type of person who'd keep a sentient sex toy, rather than to discover that you _were_ a sentient sex toy.

"Don't you want your winnings?" Lock asked.

Duke had no intention of turning back, but Audrey leaned over and grabbed the cash from the centre of the table, fisting her hand around it.

" _We're going_ ," she said forcefully. She glared Duke on ahead of her out of the carriage.


	10. Chapter 10

**10.**

"That man!" Audrey fumed as they burst into the corridor that bypassed the dining car. Bad enough everyone but Mrs Murphy assuming she was just a piece of decoration on Duke's arm. Bad enough the condescension and amusement. Bad enough the ridiculous tittering _sheep_ around Lock...! But to assume that Duke would...? That Nathan was an object for mere casual _trade_?!

"I know." Duke was looking around furtively, but the police who'd been there earlier weren't in sight now. "I feel like I need to wash just for having spoken to him."

"It's just as well Nathan _did_ stay in the cabin. I definitely know he didn't need this as well, in his current state of mind."

Duke's shudder suggested rather more sympathy than he'd previously had for the automaton.

"Do you remember any more from the other place?" she dared ask. "About being lovers? Is it coming back at all?" She frowned as she watched the contortions of his expression, that spoke so intensely of wanting to flee the question, then she demanded, "How much do you _really_ remember, Duke?"

His eyes pleaded for her to let it go, nervously flicking back to the door they'd come through, where other passengers were, even though there was no-one nearby who could hear. Such things were not acceptable to the polite company here, huh? Audrey thought bitterly. Never mind what Lock had just suggested, and the creepy, deplorable abuses of consent and ownership indicated by it. Duke turned uneasily to look around again, like it was a compulsion.

"The police must have gone to check the cabins, the other way," Audrey said. "Well, Duke?"

It had been upsetting to see them change; to realise that they didn't remember themselves anymore, and to watch the distance expand between them again when they had been so close. They had _come back_ knowing their relationship was at the mercy of this world and its rules. Audrey knew that.

It had been difficult to have them both so knowledgeable and confident while she was the one left out, but it was no relief to see them struggle now. She felt bad for having pushed them away while they'd remembered. Contrary of her to want them back again as they had been, Duke so sure and passionate, Nathan not crippled by guilt or loathing or... whatever the flavour of his crisis of identity actually was. How could it be so terrible for them - Nathan discovering that he was a sexual being of any sort, Duke smothered in self-disgust by the thought of such association with an automaton - when there'd been _love_ between them before?

"I didn't _forget_ what happened in the other place." Duke's voice was choked almost inaudible. "I just can't... I don't... I mean, what the _fuck_? And on top of that, I've got this _fucking_ letter that-"

"Oh, come on!" Audrey burst out, annoyance overriding her sympathy. "I've _seen_ Nathan's letter, and it's not that bad. The guy's busy working on redefining 'stoic'."

"Not _that_ letter," Duke said. "There's another one, that I wrote to myself. Because evidently I'm more of an asshole than the tin cop is. Because-"

Audrey's breath caught, unintentionally, and she didn't mean to interrupt Duke's stream mid-confession, when he was actually telling her things, but the words just came out anyway. "Did you write a letter for _him_?" She saw the answer in his eyes and gripped his arm fiercely. "You must give it to him! He remembers enough to think that he was _used_ by you, given the context that he's just discovered is attached to automata and sex. If you have a letter that tells him that you love him-"

Duke laughed raucously, shrugging her hand off. "No! Don't be ridiculous. I _don't_ love him, Audrey! He's a machine, and he's a cop besides!"

Her eyes went in dismay to the door of the cabin that they were coming up on. Nathan's hearing was excellent _._ She might've slapped Duke if she hadn't seen the same realisation change Duke's face, even as he backtracked.

"No, that's not - I - it's more confusing than that. Don't ask me these questions, Audrey!" He barged ahead and through the door. Audrey frowned and considered that perhaps it would be wise to lock it from the inside even if one of them was in the room, in future. Lock had known things - he could be a threat as well as a pig - and the police were here. She followed fast on Duke's heels, anxious to gauge Nathan's reaction.

Nathan was standing up in the middle of the room, poised as if interrupted, and like so many of his postures he looked too alive for something merely made of clockwork parts. Now that Audrey knew why, knew that she was immune to the powers that had caused the transformation, she had to wonder if that was why he had also always seemed to _feel_ so oddly human beneath her touch.

She glared at Duke and he looked away. She shut the door with a slam and said, loudly, crossly, to both of them, "Duke has a letter. One he should have told you about before now."

Duke's gawping expression of betrayal would garner no pity from her. They _needed_ to sort this mess out. But his next words weren't helpful. "It's _my_ letter. I don't have to give it to anyone if I choose not to."

His expression was utterly resistant.

Nathan's face had shifted and his mouth had dropped open in what was actually a kind of hopeful fashion, but he deflated fast. Audrey saw him rally enough to state, "But you _did_ write a letter," barely making it a question. Almost more an affirmation to himself. He nodded slowly and sank down in the seat by the window.

The landscape going past was green now, so they had left mining country and industrial landscapes, even if only temporarily. Audrey glared back at Duke's glare and went to sit opposite Nathan, watching the land go backwards.

Duke sat on the narrow bed. "We for real do need to prepare for lunch," he said, traces of annoyance still hanging over the words. "The car was all laid out ready, so it can't be long."

Audrey frowned. "What's to prepare? I only just put this dress on, and I'm not changing it to eat. The man in the shop fixed this hair up _far_ better than I can hope to match and I'm not messing with that, either."

Duke gave a grunt and looked disillusioned. Audrey wondered again what women actually _did_ in this world. In the other one, there had been women police and doctors and nurses, but in this one all that most of them seemed to do was _follow men_.

"Heppa is more progressive," Nathan said, reading the disgust in her face. "Additionally, many of the richer patrons of Heppa society got to be where they are through advancement of technology and industry, so the manners are less rarefied there."

"Heppa was bad enough," Audrey said. She'd mostly been a fugitive in Heppa. She'd been _trying_ to be inconspicuous and blend in.

"I've no idea how or why people prepare for dinner," Duke grit. "I just know that they _do_ , and this is a con, even if it's not a con like any other. I'm changing into the darker vest, because I get the feeling this is a crowd that notices." He got his case out and opened it on the bed.

Audrey watched Nathan watch him change. She reflected on how odd it must be to believe that you were a completely sexless being, and then suddenly discover an unremembered relationship. That someone considered themselves _yours_. Nathan's eyes trailed Duke's bare skin while his back was turned and dared to look wistful and conflicted. They continued to fix on Duke after he'd dressed himself, until he turned around, at which point Nathan quickly looked away.

Audrey reached over the table between their seats and squeezed his hand, regretting the reduced value of the gesture upon metal fingers. He jerked his head up, looking at _her_ with the same intensity. So he hadn't forgotten the _other_ things said while they were someone else, much as he and Duke were wrapped up in the awful tension between them.

"I - I - There were policemen here in the cabin," Nathan said, flustered, changing the subject, metal eyelids blinking rapidly at their joined fingers until Audrey disentangled hers and pulled them away. "Living ones. They asked to conduct a search of your belongings. I wanted to tell them I was a fellow lawman, but I only told them I couldn't permit any such thing while my 'masters' were not present. They said they'd return after later."

"That must have been hard for you." Evidently even Duke could see as much, because he sighed and added, "You did good." He took a roll of bills from the suitcase and another from his pocket. There was a further bulge in his left pants pocket that was his winnings and substitutions from the first few card games. Audrey _had_ noticed how careful he'd been to keep that money separate. "Our bankroll had to shrink." He packed the two rolls of notes tightly into one roll and held it out to Nathan. "Do you have a, a cavity, or some space behind a panel somewhere, to hide this? I need it somewhere they won't look."

Nathan had started twitching at the word 'cavity' and the rest was instilled with a trace of Duke flailing to catch up and refute the misunderstanding.

"You could throw it out of the window," Nathan said sourly.

"Yeah, but we can probably use it again once we're free and clear in Heppa."

Which was a good enough argument that Audrey chimed in her support, asking Nathan, "Please can't you? We don't want to have to steal _more_."

Duke frowned her way. "Where'd you put the bills from Lock? Some of those might be-"

"Oh, no." She shook her head firmly. "Some of them are safe, and everyone has some of your dodgy loot by now. You didn't want it, so I'm keeping it." It was tucked in her bodice, but she carefully didn't look down. Let Duke wonder, and try to find it if he dared. She did miss the expansive folds of the other dress, if not the ridiculousness and _fuss_ of it.

Nathan was untucking his shirt from his trousers and standing up. "There's space in the abdominal cavity. It might interfere with some mechanisms if I have to bend double, but since I'm _not_ planning to bow in obeisance to anyone..." He took the tool kit out of the luggage netting and started to unscrew a panel.

"It's a big help," Duke said. "I really appreciate not having to worry about anyone discovering these. Um." Nathan wordlessly extended a hand to take the roll and packed it inside his body. Duke pulled a few faces and evidently came to a decision... though Audrey would have hoped for a more progressive one: "There's an _asshole_ called Lock with a really sick interest in automata. You need to stay the hell out of his way."

Nathan's eyebrows rose, but his attention was downward, on screwing the panel back into place. "Worried about me?"

"He's got a clockwork butler and offered me an 'exchange'. You would've appreciated how resoundingly we both told him to stuff it, by the way."

"Of course you did," Nathan said.

"We did, you know," Audrey told him. "Really, you _can_ rely on us to look out for you, even Duke, even while he _is_ stuck in his own freakout. We were both angry on your behalf."

" _Freak_ -" Duke shook his head and made a rude noise. "Anyway, my _point_ is that if the guy says something, ignore it. He's slime."

A shrill noise was approaching along the corridor outside. Duke turned his head as Audrey moved to the door, looking around for a weapon. "Chill. It's a guy with a bell to tell us dinner's about to be served. Seriously, between the two of you, I feel like your freakin' native guide. And I am _not_ comfortable in this place!"

Audrey narrowed her eyes, but let it go. Okay, they were all stressed out, _nobody_ was on comfortable territory, Duke was just the closest to knowing the lie of the land... Check. She looked at Nathan. "Are you coming to lunch?"

"I don't eat."

"No, but you could hang over my shoulder and make me look good." Duke said, and ignored Nathan's returning glare.

"You wrote a letter," Nathan said, after a moment, blinking slowly, metal face turning unreadable.

"Apparently so." Duke looked darkly at Audrey. "You just can't tell anyone anything, it seems."

"Give me the letter," Nathan said, "and I'll read it while you're at lunch."

" _No_ ," Duke responded flatly.

"If it's addressed to me, it's _my_ letter," Nathan said. "What's more, it's information about who we really are, and that's important."

"I wrote it," Duke snapped, stepping for the door, "so it's my letter." He wasn't stupid - Audrey could see the 'oh, crap' of realisation his face was wearing in that moment, as he quickly angled it away from Nathan's sight.

"Then I'll take _my_ letter, instead," Nathan said bitterly. "The one I wrote to you. I haven't seen it, and I only very dimly remember writing it."

Nathan couldn't see how Duke's face twisted with conflict before he spun back, reaching into his jacket. He tossed the folded paper on the end of the bed like it meant nothing. "Have at it. There's not much in it, anyway."

"Damn it, Duke!" Audrey snapped. " _And_ you, Nathan!" He picked the letter up despite the new hurt that twisted his artificial expression, and held it tightly, though he didn't make any move to read it.

"Guessing that's a 'no' on the dinner plan," Duke said.

"I don't belong to you," the automaton responded. "I don't have to do what you want."

Audrey wanted, very badly, to bash both of their heads together... She felt a twinge of pain in her own head, at the front up by the hairline, stirred and provoked by the _familiarity_ of that feeling.

"Leave him," she said crossly to Duke. "It's no surprise that he doesn't want to come and play Butler, now, is it? _I_ don't particularly want to play at being your accessory, either. _On the other hand_ , we do need to eat, so I'd rather not be the last in line."

Duke choked. "These people get waiting service! And, _fuck_ \- you're not my accessories! It's an act! It's a _con_ , guys, it's just a con!"

"Whatever. I'm hungry and I'm going. You can stay here together, if you want."

"I do _not_ want," Duke snapped, but he still sneaked an anxiety-filled look behind them as they headed out the door.

Dinner was too much fanfare and too little food, and whatever Audrey was used to eating like, this was not it. The biggest thing in its favour was that apparently Lock had been seated in the other dining car. Duke chewed nervously and as mechanically as if he were one of the automatons he so despised, lost in thought, leaving Audrey to listen to others' conversations for her entertainment.

"We shall be stopping in Verrond for two hours this afternoon," a woman nearby was saying to a presumed husband. "The cobbler there made those excellent boots I bought last year, the red ones."

Audrey would have liked to hear more of Verrond, but the woman was far more interested in the boots, so she tuned that conversation out and listened for something else.

"-the racetrack, but two hours is _not_ enough time! Such a tedious schedule. I do _not_ know why it couldn't be longer. After all, we shall be standing still for half the night at the points change because of the _goods trains_. I ask you!"

"-priorities _so_ out of line. Dear Arnie Ricarson runs a much better service on the line to Anduff. If only his takeover bid had come through-"

"-overcooked and hideous. I can't eat this swill. Horace, you must signal the waitress and complain."

Audrey screwed her face up and massaged her head. "Do _you_ know anything about Verrond?" she asked Duke, kicking him under the table until his initial non-response turned into a vague attention.

"I know it has a market," he said. "No regular air traffic. Last time I was there, I had to put the _Rouge_ down in a field." His face turned bleak.

"What about the races?" she pushed, trying to get him past the grim reminder of his vessel's fate. "Are we talking horses? Dogs? Cars?"

"Who races automobiles?" Duke asked blankly. "Though I suppose that can't be far off, once a few more inventors start working on serious designs."

Audrey felt the stab from her head again. "I think that's from the other world."

"Is your memory coming back?" he asked intently, perhaps a little fearfully, keeping his voice low.

"No more than before. There've been... flashes, from the beginning, things that slipped through. But just fragments, not anything that matters."

He nodded. "They race horses at Verrond. It's a rural town. The racetrack is the main draw for outside attention. I think it's the wrong day for racing, today, though the market might be running. Don't tell Nathan that half of it's illegal trade. Though the other half is farm produce." He managed to actually muster a grin, then shook his head, gripped in a memory of his own. "I had _goats_ in the boat when I lifted off from there. They _climb_. Little blighters got into everything. And they _chew_. I nearly ended up falling out of the sky that day, too."

Audrey gave him a commiserating smile, but gave up after that. She'd eaten too quickly, and all she had left to do while everyone else was finishing their food was to push a piece of hard stalk around her plate with her fork. Occasionally one of the nearby diners glared at her when the metal squeaked against the porcelain. She was almost desperate for distraction by the time she noticed Lock's automaton over by the door, where he - it? - seemed to just be hanging around and watching the diners.

"Look." She nudged Duke. "That _is_ Butler, isn't it? Or do other models look alike? Lock isn't here, so perhaps it's someone else's?"

Duke squinted. "Looks like Butler to me. They're not all that alike, and I haven't seen another on the train, unless they've been hiding like our own mopey clockwork companion."

Audrey thought the name-calling spoke more of unintended affection than anything else. "I want to talk to him."

Duke grabbed her arm as she started to rise and held her back. " _Wait_ , damn it!"

"Seriously, Duke, I'm going out of my mind here. Lock suggested he's not as sentient as Nathan. I want to judge that for myself. Besides, maybe he'll let slip something about Lock, and how he knows all the things he seems to know."

"I should be the one to-"

She pushed him back down, breaking his hold in the bargain. "You stay here and make sure I get my dessert, because God help them and you if I've sat here waiting through this _tedium_ to miss out on that."

He choked a laugh. "Yes, ma'am. But... be careful. You're not armed any more, remember?"

"I know. If the market in Verrond has so much contraband, that _must_ include weapons, so we'll remedy the matter while we're there." Louder, she declared, "I'll go... powder my face..." and picked her way between the tables.

It was possible that the stares she received were sceptical about her face ever having received any powdering at all. But she cast a fake smile around them all as she crossed to the doorway. She slipped out into the passage that bypassed the dining carriage, and the shadowy corner on the other side of the door where she had spied Butler.

Duke's concern came back to mind sharply as she shut the door to keep their conversation private and found herself alone in the narrow passageway with the automaton, a stiff figure in formal clothes.

"Hello?" she ventured. He was definitely unnerving. He'd backed out of the shadows into the window-lined corridor at her approach, and it was much brighter there, but the light shifted rapidly as the landscape moved by them on the other side of the windows. "I'm Audrey Parker. We met at the card game. Do you... have a name other than Butler?"

The clockwork-controlled eyelids fell and rose again, and his head tipped mechanically. This was not like talking to Nathan, who was - well, who felt like an _artificial human_ , whereas this automaton just felt _artificial_. "My name is Butler."

"Okay..." Knowing that Lock used the automaton for sex abruptly didn't make him any less dangerous in this confined space. "You're waiting for Mr Lock to finish dining?"

"I was asked to wait here." That statement felt like a considered compromise.

"Well, I'm waiting for dessert, so perhaps we can talk, and make the wait go a little faster for us both. How about that?"

Audrey could see the automaton struggling to parse the suggestion. She thought that people perhaps did not usually talk to him and expect him to respond like a person. "I can talk," he allowed after a moment. "Conversation is incorporated into my functions."

"Just not usually asked for, huh?" Audrey was feeling bad for him now, and a little bad for feeling afraid of him. Conversation was a hugely complex interaction, and even if Butler wasn't so developed for independence and learning as Nathan was, there had to be a good deal of capacity in there. "Do you like working for Mr Lock? Is it... okay for me to ask that?" She took a step closer, peering into his glass eyes. In the case of this clockwork man, his eyes were brown, and they did not have the intense humanity Nathan's did. His hair was soft and long, gathered in a clip at the nape of his neck, ponytail lying draped elegantly over a shoulder. Audrey wondered if his appearance had been tailored deliberately to some purpose. She found it hard to imagine he had ever been human. Was he truly a creation of this Trouble, a temporarily existing extra, doubly unreal?

"It is my function," Butler said. "So yes, I suppose I do 'like' it."

"But I'm... sure he values you. It must mean something to you, whether or not he... How much he values you." Being ready to trade him for Nathan didn't speak much of 'value'. Audrey's heart sank a little at the thought. She wondered how much Nathan would have been devastated to hear this conversation.

"I am worth a great deal of money," Butler hazarded, which wasn't _better_. He was clicking and whirring internally, trying to figure out what sort of answer she wanted.

"Do you ever think that you'd like to do something else?" Her breath caught, because she was sure, so _sure_ that the answer was 'yes'.

"I am feeling a small conflict over my current orders," the automaton admitted. He settled his face into a frown upon her.

"Because of me? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that. I'll - I'll go." Maybe she was only making things difficult. If Nathan was facing something of a meltdown at the prospect of having an owner's sexual gratification an option included in his factory purpose, then perhaps the suggestion of doing something _else_ would face this automaton with a similar crisis.

Audrey was already backing off when the automaton reached fast for her throat. She almost evaded the clutch, but he readjusted and caught her up, clockwork joints clanking. Like Nathan, he was faster than expected for something so heavy and wrought from ponderous metal. She automatically clutched her hands around his metal wrist and kicked her feet where they hung off the floor. "What - what orders did he give you?" she choked out shrilly, clinging to his hands, trying to take her weight onto her arms in place of her throat.

"To kill Audrey Parker. I bear no personal ill feeling against you, and I am not designed to kill. But it would not be the first time, so I am afraid that however I might regret it, I still possess the capacity to complete the order."

Audrey kicked at him with both feet, swinging her body back against the straight bar of his arm, hands clutching desperately to keep their purchase as he shook her. She managed to land a double-footed blow that rocked him. But the initial firm grip on her neck was tightening to a crushing one. She had chance for maybe one more move before she was dead...

A surge of thoughts flashed through her, about Nathan's weaknesses and Duke's observations, the repairs she'd seen them doing, the mechanics she'd seen bared open. She swung again and aimed her next kick at the join between arm and shoulder.

The grip upon her loosened for a moment, enough for her to use her hands to tear her neck loose at the cost of mere bruises. She dropped down and stumbled back in a slow, ungainly fall onto her hands and rump. It wasn't a good position, with the automaton stalking after her quickly, annoyance on his face now as he aimed to stomp her with its feet. But she didn't have to scramble back very far to hit the door into the dining carriage, shoving it open onto the large compartment, where there were _people_ and _witnesses_ and surely safety...

Where everyone there could suddenly see her, _on the floor_ , and a ripple of amusement and dismay and disdain went through them that far outweighed any sense of concern.

Butler backed off. He might have been told to kill her, but he presumably knew not to let anyone see him do it. She wondered if Duke would count or if Duke had a similar death order hanging over his head.

Audrey pulled herself to her feet and had staggered further back into the dining car by the time Duke reached her. A few other men had risen but they deflated and sank down with a degree of relief.

"Are you alright?" Duke asked, alarmed, his hand going to her hand, which covered her wheezing, aching throat. He stopped just short of touching her. "What happened?"

"I _fell_ ," she said, hoarsely, loudly. "So clumsy of me." She could not tell the carriage at large about Butler and Lock. They were unlikely to believe her and would probably laugh at that, too. " _Please_ ," she said quietly in Duke's ear. "Don't say anything. Sit back down. We can't go back until everyone else is moving around."

She strongly suspected Butler would be just as likely to try to harm both of them if they were alone together, and remembering the fight with Nathan on the airship, he might well succeed even if it _was_ two to one.

"All right," Duke replied, too loud, with a note of affectation. "Well, never mind. Your dress isn't too rumpled and your hair doesn't look a strand out of place. Your dessert is here, and you may have mine, too. For medicinal purposes."

He sat her down, and while it was generous of him to spare his cake - cream sponge topped with strawberries - she barely tasted either of the portions, fretting about what would happen when they stepped away from the safety of the other passengers once again.


	11. Chapter 11

**11.**

Duke paced the cabin, wanting to lash out at something. At least Nathan had finally got some incentive to pull himself together, and was standing guard at the door. Audrey had flopped on the bed. Her throat was bruising black already.

"He's just - he can't just give his automaton a standing order to _kill you_ if he catches you alone!" Duke exploded. "On a train packed with passengers? Who does that?"

"Well, someone's been trying to kill me since I woke up here without my memory," Audrey said. "I think we can be pretty sure Lock is in league with them now. Poor Butler."

"Poor Butler!" Duke echoed incredulously.

"He doesn't want to follow those orders."

"Yet he _is_ following them," Nathan said. "We're built for discernment. That doesn't speak well of his character to me."

"If it's all he's ever known?" Audrey countered with inexplicable anger. "Who knows what Lock might do in the face of disobedience, besides? He's a loathsome man."

Nathan looked unconvinced and judgy, and for once Duke couldn't blame him. He was still seething and shaking - a little bit - with disbelief that that _thing_ had tried to kill Audrey right outside the dining car. With the noise of the train and the chatter of the diners, he'd never heard a thing.

Still, at least Nathan seemed to have found his balls, or... whatever he had in place of those. Ball-bearings, maybe. "From now on, neither of you are going anywhere without me," he said fiercely. The cabin was securely locked, but still he hung by the door. The thin panel walls inside the train wouldn't stop a determined automaton.

"At least until Verrond," Audrey amended. "We can get weapons at Verrond, Duke says, and I... know the trick to deal with Butler." She looked between Duke and Nathan. "Even if I don't want to use it."

Duke pulled a face. He'd found his letter from Nathan laid out on the bed when they came in, swiftly forgotten by Nathan in the face of Audrey's dishevelled and bruised state, and had pocketed it again with more consciousness and relief than he'd like. He wondered again whether he ought to read the letter he'd written for Nathan. Would it be worse than the one he'd written to himself? Would _reading_ it be worse than just _giving_ it to the guy, sight unseen, if he was going to end up doing that anyway at some stage? It might be better not to know what it said.

He needed to make a decision, and there were too many other things on his mind right now. "What if we go after Lock? If he's gone, Butler won't need to follow his orders."

"I wish," Audrey said bitterly. "He's always surrounded by people, and we'd be sure to be noticed fast. We still need to get to Heppa. Lock _isn't_ who we want. You told me that's someone called Malcove. Lock must be an associate or underling."

"I'm not happy with the talk of disposing of anyone," Nathan said, "But it seems in that case we ought to handle Lock somehow before we reach Heppa, to prevent him reporting back."

"That would mean having to be around him, to watch and learn and wait for the opportunity," Duke said, pointedly.

"If that's what it takes." It went without saying that that course of action meant leaving the room, so Duke _just about_ managed not to say it. Nathan seemed determined, and Duke figured he'd got the scent of the case and taken the bit between his teeth again. _A purpose_ probably made a difference, especially to a machine. Let him feel like a cop again. Not that Duke could really be in favour of that part, but at least the guy looked alive. In a purely metaphorical sense.

Maybe the letter had helped. Maybe the other would help _more_.

...Duke was surely not seriously considering that. He was _not_.

"The police are on the train..." Nathan started to venture.

"Not a chance," Duke cut him off.

"You seem to work under the misapprehension that they exist to hinder people rather than protect them," Nathan said. "But that's _you_. They won't let someone get away with setting their... their property onto people with murderous intent."

"Sorry, Nathan," Audrey said, "But nothing I've seen so far gives me much faith that two men will take my word against the word of a man of Lock's standing in this world, and since I'm the only witness to the attack, I don't think that's a viable course."

"But we do-" Nathan started.

"Any other two men." She smiled at both him and Duke. "Besides, Heppa's police were after me. What if Duke's conviction they're investigating the stolen money is just his customary paranoia, and _these_ are after me, too?"

" _Hey_ ," Duke said. "This conversation is giving me chills. No way am I turning to the cops. Bad enough having to work with _you_." He faltered and gave Nathan a grim smile to try lighten the comment.

"Well," Nathan said, flustered by the resounding rejection of his suggestion, "perhaps Verrond will give us opportunity to corner and deal with Lock _away_ from the train. We need to arm both of you first, and until you have the capability to protect yourselves against Butler, we shouldn't split up."

"Verrond might also be a really good opportunity for Lock and Butler to spring something on _us_ ," Duke pointed out.

"Bring it on. He wants to gift us the chance to get rid of him?" Audrey raised her chin. "With the chance to claim it as self-defence besides? Probably he'll make it less work on our part, anyway, by trying to jump us away from spectators."

"He'll just send his automaton," Duke said.

"Butler won't get near either of you."

The fierceness in that declaration had Duke quirking an eyebrow at Nathan.

"And again, that'll be one less problem that we need to deal with," said Audrey, craning for a better view out of the window. "Either way, it's time to stop talking about it. I can see buildings up ahead."

Nathan left the door to move closer to the window, yearning interest mixed with anxiety in his stiff face. Guy had never left Heppa before three days ago, Duke was reminded. He remembered the way the automaton had followed him, eager like a puppy for new things, staring at everything on the airship. Nathan caught himself, then retreated guiltily back to his position at the door, though still leaning to watch their approach.

Audrey was focused upon it, too, but her attention was more cynical, assessing the use this place would be to them.

"We should either aim to be first off, or wait until last," Nathan said. "I might not be able to spot Butler and prevent him from getting to you in the crush, and there would be too much potential for injury to bystanders."

"I don't care about bystanders," Duke volunteered, raising a hand. "Particularly not _these_ bystanders. Hell with 'em. Easier to avoid Lock if it's busy."

"No," Nathan said, clearly not about to be moved on this.

"I quite liked some of the people at the card game," Audrey said. "Just because they have the money to travel in style doesn't make them terrible people. Let's go wait by a door."

The rhythm of the train was already changing as it slowed down, wheels starting to let out a soft whine against the tracks. Duke would in every way rather have been travelling by air. He didn't like not having the control of their movements. He grumbled, but went along with Audrey and Nathan's preferred course of action. Two votes to one, after all, even if one of them was a tin can.

Most of the passengers weren't as eager to disembark, or perhaps were too above being seen to be eager. A few joined them at the doors before the train was pulling into the station, only delaying them enough that they saw Lock briefly amid the busy offloading. He had Butler at his shoulder again, and he _smirked_ at them.

Duke felt his hackles rise. He didn't think he'd ever wanted to punch someone so badly.

Nathan lifted his head and cast back the _fiercest_ look Duke had seen on him, but Lock seemed more delighted than ever.

"Do _not_ talk to him," Duke warned, low. "Do not engage with him in any way. Don't even look at him."

Instead of taking it in the spirit of genuine concern that Duke intended - hell, Nathan had already been having some existential crisis _without_ Lock outlining all the things he'd personally use him for if he were _his_ heap of clockwork junk - Nathan stiffened up and cast him that you-don't-own-me look again.

They lost sight of Lock in the crowds but spotted the police on the platform, who unlike Lock, remained in sight, watching the movements of the passengers. Duke, sweating in his too-fine suit, was pretty sure they were the same ones who'd been searching the train.

"They came back," Nathan explained guiltily. "I didn't have chance to tell you, with everything else. I let them search the luggage and find nothing, the second time. They didn't search me."

Duke nodded but still felt nervous. They hung around the station long enough to see the cops get back on the train. "Any bets they're going to search everything again while the passengers aren't there?"

"It's what I'd do," Nathan agreed.

Duke snorted, unsurprised.

"Come on," Audrey said. "We have only two hours, and I want my gun."

"Women and shopping, huh?" Duke quipped, and she smacked his shoulder with her open palm. "We can spend that money here, now, since the cops got back on the train."

"I've got it," Nathan confirmed. "Please spend it. I'm not a money box for your stolen gains."

"A porcelain pig would be cuter," Duke said.

He pretended not to hear Audrey mutter, "You weren't saying that about his metal ass in the other world."

* * *

The market had changed a little from how Duke remembered it a couple of years back. There'd been, notably, the addition of a new local private security force, installed by the town council to stamp out corruption. So far as Duke could see from walking around, they were tacitly co-existing with the corruption, probably with the occasional bribe or favour thrown in. He made a note to avoid green uniforms either way, and nudged Audrey and Nathan with a warning to do the same. Nathan looked scandalized even though they weren't real cops.

Nathan was doing okay, though. Nathan seemed to have achieved something, internalising his new protective role in opposition to the anxieties about his manufactured purposes - which were fucked up anyway because it seemed pretty clear to Duke that whoever had invented or crafted a machine like Nathan had clearly intended it to be a _person_ above all. The original intention hadn't survived contact with the consumer, which sucked, and shit, these people _sucked_ , and Duke had no words bad enough for them. But if all they'd wanted was a sex doll with moving parts, _or_ a police thug, why would they have bothered with the attitude?

Then again, Nathan _was_ a person. Duke kept forgetting, the other world receding from his memory whenever he failed to focus upon it. Maybe the attitude was just Nathan, and nothing to do with the technology at all.

He wasn't remotely servile about it, but while they were in Verrond, Nathan stuck as close to Duke and Audrey as Butler did to Lock. The looks he was casting people probably didn't make them seem very friendly, because there was nothing objective about his belligerence.

Out of his depth, at least the automaton stayed for the most part cagey, close, and _quiet_. Audrey, on the other hand, made it clear she intended to do no such thing. Duke was increasingly amazed she'd managed to keep as subdued as she had for the card games.

His vague memories of that other world indicated women acted differently there - didn't wear corsets, for one, and some of the clothing had been almost obscene, though he hadn't thought so at the time. She was obviously chafing under the restrictions of this world much more since her damaged memory had been refreshed by a dose of what she was accustomed to.

"No, I want to see _weapons_ ," Audrey said baldly to the patronising trader she was arguing with now. "If that gun was ever capable of firing, I'd be surprised it damaged anything except the hand of the person firing it. That _can't_ be the limit of your stock."

The put-upon trader grumbled and produced a few worthier pistols from beneath his stall. "Oh! This is like mine!" Audrey's hand went straight to one, beating the trader's as he reached to stop her.

"That's a Heppa police service pistol," Nathan growled, eyes narrowing on the trader. "Where did _you_ get it?"

"I just sell them on! Pick them up from people coming through on the trains, or the road," the unfortunate man yelped. He stared at Nathan. "You - you're one of-"

"He's _not_ ," Duke said, exasperated. Nathan didn't seem sorry about breaking their cover, he just seemed smug to be recognised as a lawman. "He's just - you know-" He waggled a finger next to his head. "House automaton with dreams of playing cops and robbers. We'll give you 40 tokens for the gun." Which was a fucking ridiculous price, but hopefully enough of an implied bribe to keep the trader quiet.

Nathan's glare could have incinerated him on the spot. Audrey was all over the pistol and hadn't registered the discrepancy on price - then again, the currency here was mostly meaningless to her. "I need the money," Duke told Nathan, gesturing for him to get on with it.

"Yeah," he said louder, as Nathan produced a screwdriver and started to unscrew the abdominal plate behind which he'd stashed the cash. "Big clockwork dreams. Like - what's those books? Silver Bolt Charlie? The automaton that fights crime!"

"There are books about that?" Nathan paused to ask.

"Children's books," Duke said, _glaring_. "Which you love."

" _How_ do you know about that?" Audrey was amused enough to be distracted from her shiny new toy.

"I _sell things_. It's amazing what specialist stuff people will pay through the nose to import. It was crazy enough to take a closer look. _I_ couldn't believe what I was reading-" At least the trader looked sympathetic to his argument, but then his eyes were still gleaming from the sale "-plus the whole _crazy_ that they're sanitizing these things up and writing kids' books about them. Plus, hey, the illustrations were really good. Artistic. Skilled. We can all appreciate more artistry..."

"We believe you," Audrey snickered.

"Don't get too excited. There's a series of books where they put faces on airships and write about them like they're people, too." Duke pointed out to Nathan, then coughed as Audrey elbowed him hard in the ribs.

Nathan's face resumed its usual blandly resentful expression as he shoved the money into Duke's hands. "Spend the rest of it here. I'm not taking it back." Metal crunched in the vicinity of his jaw as he turned aside to fix up his abdomen.

They re-armed themselves at the market, and bought a few other bits and pieces. Some spare Nathan-parts, in preparation for if Butler did attack and inflict damage, but mostly just excuses to spend the money. Duke was going to have to return to the card tables and actually do some winning if he wanted to replenish their funds.

"If we were hoping to deal with Butler and Lock outside of the train, we're running out of time," Nathan remarked, his voice low.

They hadn't seen Lock at the market at all, though they'd spotted others from the train intermingling among the crowds.

"I'd rather face a confrontation and ditch them _now_ than know we have to contend with them stuck in the confines of the train tonight," Audrey said. "If they're not at the market, they'll be isolated from pretty much everyone else who might recognise us, who _is_ here. If we can find them..."

"If we simply made them miss the train," Nathan suggested, "perhaps that would be the most elegant solution."

Duke muttered, "Lock's pretty high-profile. They'd notice if he wasn't on board. Might even wait for him."

"That's also true if he's _dead._ "

Audrey made a noise of frustration. "We have to do _something_." Her hand twitched beside the gun she'd tucked in her dress - she'd torn the dress to do it, but you more-or-less couldn't tell, or tell that the gun was there, from how she'd rearranged the lines of it. Duke had found a small pistol and an ankle holster, and had decided to settle for that, for the sake of staying inconspicuous about being armed while dressed in the confining, expensive suit.

Nathan, wearing similarly tailored clothing over a skin of unforgiving metal, had bundled up the plain, serviceable pistol he'd bought to replace his lost standard issue weapon among the other purchases he carried, for now. He seemed to regard himself as in less danger than the two of them, anyway, though Duke certainly knew he wasn't invulnerable.

"Do we take the risk?" Nathan said. "Maybe we can at least put Butler out of action. Better than having to look over our shoulders for the rest of the journey."

On that, they could all agree, so they cut around, through the quieter streets of the town away from the market, looking for any sign of Lock's party.

When they found him, he was surrounded by people, and by that time they were all almost back to the station. Duke cursed. "He kept himself in a crowd of hangers-on?" Butler was there, too.

"Seems like he might have never been interested in coming after us off the train after all," Audrey said, "but he definitely thought we might come after him, that cowardly slimeball."

They had no choice but to fall in and drift back to the train in the wake of Lock's party. Staying behind Lock meant cutting things close, and they made it just in time before the guard climbed on and blew his whistle.

They did, however, get to watch as the police from Breinor were left behind them on the platform, heads shaking while the train pulled out and their fruitless investigation trundled away from them.

"A positive outcome for you," Nathan asserted, albeit with visibly mixed feelings. "You don't have to fret about them anymore. Additionally, we have our weapons, and neither of you are without defence. Although I still plan to be the one to deal with Butler if anything happens on the train."

Duke sighed. While it _was_ a weight off his mind, it also only seem to concentrate the other weights that were left. "Audrey, would you mind going to your cabin with Nathan for fifteen minutes? I need to get freshened up."

She raised her eyebrows. "How _delicate_ of you. Modesty isn't worth your life, you know." She frowned as his face didn't falter. "Well, I have to get changed, too. See if the new dresses are any better for weapon concealment and freedom of movement."

"I can wait outside the cabins," Nathan volunteered.

"I don't actually _mind_ ," Audrey said.

"Yeah. Not like you're either sexually interested or capable. Go guard her. Like you said, I'm armed, I can look after myself for ten minutes."

"If I'm _outside_ I can guard both-" Nathan started, in a hassled stutter. But Audrey curled her hand in his collar and dragged him into the cabin after her, with the bundle of her new dresses and everything else in his arms.

Duke groaned and closed and locked the door behind himself. He heard a giggle from next door and heard the automaton make some exclamation of dismay. He wondered what Audrey was doing.

He sank down on the bed, not bothering to even remove his shoes, and groaned louder, dropping his head into his hands. This was - this was _stupid_. He cursed and made himself uncurl and draw the gun from his ankle holster, and he set it beside the bed where he could easily reach it. Like hell was he letting his distraction get him killed.

Okay... He took a deep breath and reached into his pocket for the letter.

It took a bit of shuffling to find the right one. _Some dick move, hogging all the letters_... Nathan was right; he couldn't have it both ways. He was giving himself an ultimatum. Either he handed Nathan's letter back to him, or exchanged it for the one he'd written Nathan. Fair was fair.

Maybe the dumb move was reading it first, but... okay, he couldn't _not_. He wasn't just going to deliver it unseen.

A scan of the paper as he opened it out flooded him with instant relief that at least it wasn't as blue as the one he'd penned for himself. In fact, there seemed to be little in the way of x-rated territory. It was nowhere near as long, either.

With trepidation, he returned to the beginning and started to read properly:

 _Dear_ _asshole_ _Tin man_ _Detective Chief Wuornos_ _Nathan,_

 _Even if you don't so much as remember you're human, I do actually fucking love you, you idiot, Even if you're now a pile of_ _scrap metal_ _that can't feel anything instead of just a stiff of a cop. Even if we can't fix this fucked up mess of a world and it ends up being permanent, which would suck beyond all measure of suckage, but we will still deal with that._

 _Talk to me, damn it. I've written the same general idea in a letter to myself, only without the interesting bits left out because I'm not the prude. We need to make this work. No- we're_ _going_ _to make this work. No Trouble gets to do this to us._

 _Considering that my alt!self was responsible for one hell of a boner during that maintenance session, I'm pretty sure we can even figure out some way around the whole clockwork body clusterfuck brain-bender, too._

 _By the way, I hope you remember we're both sleeping with Audrey as well. Who knows, maybe you'll find that one easier to keep a grasp on? We need to get her memory back. That means working together. I'm not too sure pushing too hard gets us anywhere with this, though. We need to be careful._

 _Duke xx_

Duke clenched his hand in the paper with a crunch and flopped his head forward into the circle of his arms, rested on his knees, and swore loudly and repeatedly.

He pulled at the corners of his brain, demanding, scouring, trying to _remember_ \- but it didn't stir much beyond echoes of their time from the airship crash until the road outside Breinor. Before that remained territory unknown.

 _Shit_. This - this was less alarming than he'd expected, but also so much worse. If he gave this to Nathan, then - well, he was _asking_ for an approach. Whether Nathan would act upon the content of the letter, he wasn't sure. But if the automaton was fretting about those memories, thinking about what they'd done on the other world, thinking _Duke_ had used him the way that... _shit_ , the way that Lock had intimated he used Butler, the way Duke had so casually commented regarding the other automaton they'd seen... If that was the root of Nathan's fears, then this letter should put those fears to rest.

Damn it, thought Duke. He was going to have to give the other letter back. It was the only fair and honest way to deal with this that he could _contemplate_.

Except it wasn't fair, was it? Because he'd read Nathan's letter already, but Nathan hadn't gotten near to this one.

Shit, shit, _shit_. So he was faced with either being a bastard over this, or else handing the letter over and stepping up to the prospect of romancing... or rejecting... a machine.

 _He's real in the other life_ , Duke reminded himself. Could he move on that basis? Take on faith that this was something worth seizing? He didn't doubt the word of his other self - he'd felt that personality, he'd _been_ _there_ , even if he didn't remember the memories that had come with the experience anymore, only how he'd acted in those moments. He tried to imagine Nathan's face and body as flesh and blood... The other letter had been pretty detailed on the subject. He was a good looking guy. Even the automaton was kind of... well. Cute.

 _Pretty shallow, Duke_...

Was he shallow?

Evi had been a distanced relationship, really. In sync with him, but a push-and-pull sort of love. Laughter and partnership and sex and screwing each other - repeatedly, variously - and a streak of competition between them a mile wild. That was as deep as he'd ever got, as _committed_ as he'd ever got. What he was looking at with Nathan and Audrey, that didn't sound like the same thing at all. Being prepared to stick to someone even if their body was reduced to cold metal was... well. _Real_.

He chewed the side of his mouth, pounded his fist against his knee, and tried to wrap his head around some kind of decision.


	12. Chapter 12

**12.**

"I hope you don't mind," Audrey said, safely behind the locked door, arranging the collar of Nathan's shirt back into place before she turned to the suitcases she'd left on the bed earlier. Nathan put their new additions down on the bed, too. Audrey threw the suitcases open, set the gun within easy reach, then started pulling at her dress.

"It wouldn't make sense for me to mind," Nathan said, clipped. "I'm made of steel. It isn't as if I can be-"

"- _Interested_?" she interrupted. "That's not why, Nathan - well, not really. Although I have to admit that, in that context, and in light of what you've both told me about how we're supposed to be together and the fact I _don't_ remember it, you _are_ less threatening than Duke. I also think perhaps it's time to change that." She cast the dress on the bed, standing in the dull beige corset and an elaborate underwear and garter belt construction underneath that Nathan had seen in the shop but not really made the connection that it would be _on_ her at some point. It still covered a lot of skin. She made a face at him and said, "It's more like a torture contraption than underwear. I swear, this _world_... I am going to pound this Malcove guy for making me suffer this crap for days on end."

Nathan nodded understanding. He was vaguely aware that the other version of Duke had also had a few snide comments to make about the excessively covering undergarments.

Audrey, her mouth quirking, reached up with both hands and pulled the top of the corset apart, releasing her breasts a little. "Oh my God, the girls can _breathe_."

Nathan tried to politely avert his gaze, but she walked around him. "The thing is, Nathan, that you're a real man trapped in this metal form, even if you don't know it. I can't help but feel we need to push that, to - to help the _person_ survive. Because being made of metal can't be good for anyone."

"I've always been _real_ ," Nathan said, trying not to let too much of his anger out at her, at the assumption. "Just because I'm not flesh and blood-"

Except he was. He ducked his head, still unsure how to handle that. It made him feel like he'd been approaching the world on false pretences.

"Are you embarrassed about the idea that you're human?" Audrey asked, breathy and a little sharp and _very_ curious.

"It's so messy," Nathan said vaguely. That wasn't really it. "I'm used to thinking of myself one way, and that's... it's _important_ , and..."

She shook her head. "This isn't you. I think we need to find that real you, to bring him to the surface, instead of you _repressing_ as you've done since we came back. Don't worry." She gave a wry laugh. "I intend to tackle Duke as well. He's being just as bad, and he doesn't even have the excuse of a clockwork brain. I thought I felt so confused and lost while you both knew who you were, in the other world, but ever since we got back, what that experience did to the two of you has been pretty awful to watch from the sidelines."

"I'm sorry."

She looked down at her breasts. Nathan hadn't moved again, since she obviously meant him to see. He tipped his head on one side as she peeled the corset further apart still and looked back up at him, her blue-grey eyes sly, a question in her face.

Nathan didn't find himself with anything particularly to say.

"You like me touching you, don't you?" she asked.

Nathan nodded. It was a peculiar experience. He had no nerve endings, and yet... he _did_ enjoy that tingle as his form seemed as though it was trying to change into something more aware and alive.

"Touch _me_ ," Audrey said, jerking her chin down at the bared triangle of her chest. "Put your hand there, and let's see what that _does_. I want to know. Maybe if we hold that contact long enough, you can remember having skin."

There were a number of responses Nathan could make about the nature of the request, but at the end of the day, she was asking him to do it and he trusted her, and reason suggested that either way, there was no real impropriety here. Either he was a machine with no sexual interest to whom such an act meant nothing, or he was a real man and they were from a world where they were lovers - however non-standard the arrangement was - and touching her was his normal, acceptable practice.

He was also not going to fight his own curiosity and desire when he had permission to indulge it. He moved to lay his hand on her chest. Audrey caught his wrist and peeled the soft glove off, stripping bare the harsh metal. "This feels like rubber," she observed, stroking the material of the glove between her thumb and forefinger.

"It's for tactile grip," Nathan said. "Metal skids." His hand felt - the wrong word, but still the best one - naked now, as she pressed it to her skin.

Nathan closed his eyes. There was a _thrum_ in his arm, as of - the closest comparison he had was as if his gears had been over-wound, everything churning and ticking too fast in that initial surge, springing loose after the key was released. But it wasn't quite like that.

Sensation was impossible. But it was as though his awareness of all the gears and workings of his arm was increasing with that tingle spreading up from his palm. After a few moments he realised there was a pulse there. It didn't belong to him - there was no single beat in him that could create so solid and regular a rhythm. "I can feel your heart beating," he told her, opening his eyes, the airbag in his throat releasing unintentionally to give a soft gasp.

She stared curiously back, looking remarkably non-awkward with a clockwork hand nestled between her breasts. "How do you like it?"

The question was odd to him, but- "I _do_ like it," he said, and he was not just being polite. This excitement in him, was that a little of what sexual arousal felt like? The purely psychological component of it, he would have to assume. "You know," he volunteered hoarsely, a little ashamed to have to own to it - did that irrationality mean this was bleed-through from the other side, the _other_ him, the one who had a human sense of masculinity to be bruised? "I don't... I _can't_ physically _react_ to arousal, no matter what."

"I suppose that's true." Her eyes travelled down his form. "You've been tight-lipped on it, but I'm guessing that if your kind of machines are shipped from the factory to places other than Heppa, and if people are making use of your cohorts in naughty fashions, then there must _be_ something down there to mimic those parts, and the function to some degree, if not the desire."

Nathan felt a vague horror at the thought that she was going to go into such territory, but she grimaced and shook her head.

"Yeah, I thought you'd get that sort of expression. Don't worry, Nathan. I think this is far enough for now. I just think we _all_ need to remind ourselves that you really are alive." She pressed her lips thinly together. "If Lock is an ally of Malcove's, then he probably knows it, too, and may think that Duke _doesn't_. Which makes his 'offer' all the more diabolical."

Nathan reluctantly removed his hand from her, seeing that the experiment was done. But he was yet treated to a further dose of her touch as she offered out the glove and then carefully peeled it back onto his fingers.

He thought that was it, until she stepped back into his space. "No, stay." She caught him as he automatically stepped away, and she pressed her body to his, pushed her head into the angle of his neck. "This is for _me_. I want to remember, too. So hold me, Nathan. Maybe the body won't do it, but the spirit might... I want to _remember_ myself, damn it. I want to _know_."

Nathan curled his arms around her, rested his chin on the top of her head carefully, and entertained for a moment the ghost of a tickle from her hair, the heat of her breath misting the sheen of his polished neck.

Holding her was easy and he felt... he felt...

"This is familiar," he said, roughly. The airbag that held his voice seemed to be constricted. Perhaps her head pressing just there was shifting the panels over it. Maybe Duke had put them back a bit loose. "This is me." He realised it as he said it. "This is something I know. Holding you." A kind of peace stole over him, soothing the protests of everything in him that said he _couldn't_ be real, that he'd fought too hard to be _real_ under other circumstances, other restrictions, and didn't _want_ to cheat by being suddenly all-along-human.

If this had just been a ghost of a life, perhaps he could learn to accept as much after all, if the reality brought back such benefits.

"How do you feel?" he dared to ask her, curling a hand up to stroke her hair.

She sighed. "I still don't remember anything. Not even a little bit."

That deflated him somewhat, but didn't take away his new surety. "Maybe it _is_ the metal. If you try with Duke..."

"Yeah. If I try with Duke. Or _both_ of you," she added. Funny how Nathan didn't feel possessive about the possibility of Duke being in the equation. It felt right. Natural. Easy to believe, in fact, that the ingrained patterns of three people who'd lived and loved and worked together were buried somewhere within them. That they had ended up together, despite being placed at odds and on opposing sides, lent to that.

"Can you kiss?" she asked.

Nathan shook his head. "My mouth and jaw are designed for speech, not for anything else." His metal jaw clanked with a sudden shift. _Damn it_... He'd pondered over the attachment that had come in his original kit, but never understood it. Now, in the light of these sorts of discussions... "I just, I remembered something. There's an attachment, but it wasn't for kissing." It was like a tube, made of the same material as the gloves, and he fixed it onto tiny hooks up behind his metal teeth. He couldn't talk properly with it in, and it had seemed extraneous. The sole purpose he had been able to think it could have was if he were ever in a situation where he needed to pretend to eat. It would stop food and drink he put in his mouth from entering his works and gumming them up, and he could just remove the sleeve and clean it afterward. It had sat in the box, at Garland's place and then later at his own, untouched for years.

He wasn't sure how he'd come to be sitting on the edge of the bed. Audrey's hands were on his shoulders, on his face, patting and concerned and kind. "I didn't mean to..."

"No," he said. "It's not your fault. Sex is... it's not _me_. It's never been... The way Duke talks about those other machines..."

"Hush." She cut him off, planting her fingers over his mouth. "It _is_ you, remember? Whatever Duke says, those functions don't have to be included to make you _used_ by someone else. Since you _are_ real, maybe they're there to make you _complete_. Being real - being human - is about living and loving, too... if you want it to be. Maybe it's _Heppa_ we should blame, who weren't interested in making that part of you an option."

Nathan sincerely doubted that they'd thought about it one way or the other. It seemed nonsensical to _him_. If he was to be a policeman...

But what need of _anything_ , in that case? You could extend such an argument to argue away _all_ of the pieces of life he'd striven for over the years, asserting his right to have them. Why had he fought for those and yet rejected this? What Audrey was saying... Heppa had made them eunuchs, perhaps they weren't _meant_ to be that way, perhaps it was possible to reclaim this, too, no matter the reason those parts and functions had originally been provided.

He frowned and started to feel annoyed, at Heppa as well as the other automaton buyers, in a way he never had before.

Audrey leaned in and kissed him on the edge of his mouth. "Like that," she said. "Keep _that_. Ignore the rest. I don't need you to BSOD out on me again."

To _what_? But she came out with many strange expressions, and Nathan focused on the tingle of the planted kiss instead. That feeling was also familiar, and made his mechanisms flutter and stutter subtly. "I'm all right," he said, a fraction testily because he could make a reasonable guess at what her unknown phrase meant.

Audrey touched his hand where it rested on his knee. "It feels very strange to be left as the guardian of both your wishes, in a way, but you were _so_ invested, before, in the idea of the three of us being together. Hopefully we'll fix things so that _all_ our memories are properly restored, but if we can't... I'd like to think that there's a way it's still possible to make of it what we can."

Nathan was struck by a sense of remembered sadness rising up, at the idea she had forgotten loving them. "It's there," he told her. "The memories are _there_ , they're just... out of reach."

The side of her mouth ticked with palpable frustration. "Well, it looks like you're doing better than I am, then, on that front."

"You say things all the time that don't make any sense to me," Nathan pointed out. "You must remember enough of the other world to do that, at least. What is a BSOD?"

"Blue screen of de-" She grimaced. "You'd never understand it if I explained it." She shook her head. "But I don't have the same things to contend with as you do. I wasn't _written over_ with this whole other existence. I hit my head. What if enough damage was done that the memories that _mean anything_ , the ones that aren't just _stupid_ and _trivial_ , are simply gone?"

"It will be all right," Nathan said. "I'm sure they don't make you who you are." But he had a strange, unsettling, hollow feeling as he said it, partnered with the _knowing_ he'd experienced as other memories bled through, that he wasn't sure he liked and didn't think he wanted to examine further in the context of that particular statement.

"We should... I should get dressed," Audrey said with a snort, reluctantly completing the fastenings of her now much loosened corset. "Before Duke knocks at the door and finds us like this, and wonders what the hell we've been doing."

"He won't wonder _that_ ," Nathan said.

She started pulling on another dress from the pile of purchases he had carried in. "You never know. He might. You both argue over everything else. I _don't_ want to see you arguing over me."

"It doesn't feel like that," Nathan protested. "It doesn't feel like that at all."

She said wryly, "Don't take this the wrong way, but you're a little too messed up at the moment to remember sexual desire, let alone jealousy, so I'd rather not risk aggravating any situations." She yanked the dress over her head and pulled it down. It was the simplest dress from the local craft traders in the market. It couldn't hide the lines of the gun, but she picked up the small, flat purse she'd also bought and put that into there.

Nathan stood up, feeling both shaken by the conversation and yet happier, at least in himself. He was worried for Audrey. "I should get changed, too." He bent to make a token few swipes at his pants legs. They were coated in a thin but visible layer of dust from the market, particularly the lowest seven or eight inches. He still had the spares Duke had bought to make him more presentable while mixing with the other train passengers, though. "I'll have to see if Duke will let me back in. Will you...?" He hesitated. "I don't mind. So long as Duke's finished, it's only metal, and you just-" He gestured to her, feeling it was only fair.

She laughed. "Yeah. I showed you mine, now I expect you to show me yours, Wuornos. I wanna see that shiny ass in all its glory... or its ridiculous knee-length long johns, as the case may be." Her face twisted. "Okay, less exciting."

"Not even remotely exciting," Nathan murmured, and reached for her hand as he went to the door. She held onto him, and the thing was, he _knew_ she was holding onto him even when he wasn't looking down at the contact, and it was the left hand she had taken, and not the right one with the pressure pads in its fingers, and he was even still wearing his glove.

He listened first at the door, then pushed it open carefully to check the corridor outside. Audrey hadn't drawn her gun, but she was clutching the bag by its lip and its flap was open. Nathan shook his head. "No clockwork killers lying in wait."

"I wonder what they're doing," Audrey said. "I'd have expected a move by now."

"Maybe Lock rescinded the order after the attempt failed and he knew he'd been made."

"Because he's scared enough of us going after him that he wants to keep his metal bodyguard pinned to his side," Audrey suggested. A fiction, but Nathan supposed it a moderately reasonable one, given human nature.

They locked their door after themselves and tapped on Duke's, calling softly. Nathan had noticed before that a woman had the cabin next to them, and she stuck her head out now and smiled and waved to Audrey.

"Darling, we were going back for cards, later." The woman's maid also peered through the door at her side. No automaton, this one. The girl was red haired and very pretty, the hair all arranged in a creation held together by pins that seemed very elaborate for a maid. Her dress was not nearly as straightforward as the one that Audrey wore now. Nathan wondered if they were failing their social disguise. "And after cards, there will be a pianist and singer in the bar. Supposed to be very good. Will you be joining us again?"

"We might," replied Audrey. "Thank you. Oh, this is Mrs Murphy, Nathan, and... This is Nathan." She pointed between them and smiled awkwardly.

"Oh! Yes, you'd said you had an automaton." Mrs Murphy's eyes went a bit hazy with disinterest, despite her friendly attitude.

Audrey surprised him by saying firmly, "He's not _Lock's_ type of automaton. He's a member of our party and we're travelling together." Nathan cast her a wild look. Their ruse? Their _cover_ -?

Mrs Murphy's eyes had narrowed slightly in thought. Nathan couldn't guess at _what_ she was thinking, especially when she chose a response of carefully saying, "Very well. Then this is Deirdre," and placed her hand on the shoulder of the maid.

Audrey smiled, and Mrs Murphy said, "I hope I'll see you in the bar, even if you're not playing cards. The gender balance of this company is decidedly askew."

The door opened and they fell inside Duke's room. Nathan stuttered his protests the second they were privately shut in again.

Audrey wasn't listening. She was grinning excitedly. "We're _all_ scandalous," she said with gleeful triumph. "Did you see that? Mrs Murphy's 'maid'?"

"Unusual for her to make the introduction by name," Nathan agreed.

"Not only that, but they're lovers. Travelling as Mrs Murphy's 'maid' is no more than a pretext. Hah!"

Nathan frowned and supposed that was possible, though he didn't really see how it was a foregone conclusion.

Duke's jaw had dropped. "Those two women? Man, I've _seen_ that maid."

"Stop it," Audrey told him. "You have two of us to focus your unsavoury attentions upon already, remember?"

Duke looked cagey. "Theoretically." He took a step back and eyed Audrey, then shifted his gaze to Nathan.

Nathan wrenched his attention back to the crucial point. "We were supposed to be pretending that I - that I belong to _Duke_ ," he said curtly. "You... you just _told her_."

"She's okay," Audrey said. "She trusted us back. She's not going to say anything to anyone else. But I'm starting to think that maybe it's just not worth it. If it hurts you to pretend, and it _does_ , then I say fuck them all. We can't escalate things much more than the guy trying to _kill_ us. We'll be back in Heppa soon and it won't matter. Why the hell can't you be your own clockwork man? Maybe you're not 'technically' a citizen, outside Heppa, but _hey_ , we still had to pay for an extortionately priced train ticket for person-shaped you, so who the hell on this train has any business taking issue with it?"

Duke choked at the diatribe, but when Nathan looked his way, he raised his hands in a gesture of surrender, and said, "Shit, _I_ never wanted you in the first place."

Nathan scowled and Audrey said sharply, "He's talking about the fake ownership. Duke, you idiot-"

"What else would he be talking about?" Nathan grumbled, looking away.

Duke made a strange noise, drawing Nathan's attention reluctantly back, despite himself. By the time he'd turned, more scuffling noises had advertised the approach and he wasn't surprised to find Duke much closer than he had been.

Nathan stared at the crumpled letter Duke thrust into his hand.

"Fair's fair," Duke said. His face was red like he was going to burst something. "Look, don't take it too... I mean, _I_ don't know what to think of most of what this thing says, either."

"Oh, _finally_ ," Nathan said, disgruntled; reminded how annoyed he'd been over the situation with the letters. That he should have written something for Duke which had been easily handed over but he'd been denied the same exchange. He moved away from both of them, stepping into the corner of the room as he carelessly flicked the paper straight and started to read. That turned out not to be overly easy, and with a frown, he laid it flat against the wall and smoothed his hands across it to try to reduce the creases.

He read the words on the paper with disbelief, and had to read again, slower, trying to decipher each word and take it in, because his clockwork brain had been too much in a rush to read the end of the sentence to work through the parts that were blurred. It looked like it had got damp at some point, though the paper seemed dry now.

He wouldn't believe it, except his own letter had backed up the sentiments. That had been different from having it confirmed in _Duke_ 's words. After all, he could choose to tell himself anything, and he could have been mistaken.

"What does it say?" Audrey was talking, behind him. "Nathan. _Nathan_. Don't zone out on me again, okay?"

"That was an option?" Duke demanded in a hiss, his voice indistinct and decidedly unhappy. "What the hell? I thought giving him the letter was supposed to make things _better_!"

Nathan thrust the letter behind him, blindly, shoving it toward Audrey's voice. The barely-useful pressure pads in his fingers told him she'd taken it, by the sounds of their clicks more than anything else. As soon as the paper was gone from his hand, he regretted it, wanting to read the words over again.

"Give him a moment to absorb," Audrey said, a gentle distraction underlying her voice. "His brain runs on gears and he's never had any framework for romantic relations." Nathan risked a glance back over his shoulder. Her brow was furrowed, her eyes focused. It occurred to him to wonder if Duke minded that he'd passed the letter to Audrey, and it was that concern that drove him to risk turning further, to look at Duke.

Duke looked nervous - no, Duke looked _afraid_. He looked up and then they both kind of froze, accidentally catching gazes, and just sort of stuck there, each pinned by the other's attention, not knowing what to do.

"All three of us," Audrey said slowly. "Maybe that's what we should do."

"Beg pardon?" Duke choked out, like his throat was constricted. "That letter... I don't remember..." His voice sank to a wheeze in the protest.

"You wrote it in the bathroom after your shower." Her eyes flashed, a mix of anger and determination. "There wasn't any other chance, and this paper's been damp."

"...Yeah." Duke shot a guilty look Nathan's way. Tempted to turn away, Nathan didn't. "The other one's like that as well. Though I'm not _altogether_ sure it's the dampness from the shower that's responsible." He made a crude gesture.

"You wrote a - an _erotic letter_?" Nathan clarified, disbelieving. "About-" No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't make himself finish that.

"About real-you. Yeah." He clutched his forehead with his spread thumb and fingers. "Okay, I _sort of_ remember writing it. But it's like everything else in that place. I did stuff, but I don't remember why. Kinda reminiscent of some illegal substance that this doesn't mean I'm admitting that I've tried."

"No-one cares right now," Audrey said flatly. Though Nathan sort of cared, because if a real flesh and blood person was going to be in love with him, couldn't it be one _without_ such criminal tendencies? "No, you don't," she added like she could read his mind.

She took a deep breath. "Look... _Both_ of you. We need to deal with this. Because we were doing better when we were on the airship and you were in cuffs-" She looked from Nathan to Duke "-and you kept talking about disposing of him. At least, we were all _happier_. The three of us need to... be ourselves. We're already under siege for who we are, and pretending to be something else we're not, just so that we can fit into this world, isn't helping. We need to make the effort to be _us_ , the _real_ us."

"But I'm not that guy!" protested Duke. "I don't have his memories, I don't _remember_ you as a human," he added, to Nathan, "though I'm pretty sure I got it loud and clear that you've got a world class ass. Or possibly that you _are_ a world class ass... No, I'm pretty sure it was both."

Nathan mustered a scowl, kind of glad of the opportunity. "Oh, you're _funny_."

"Shut up." Audrey brandished the letter. "This says we should try whether we remember or not. This could have been the _last chance_ you guys had to talk to each other, and I guess I'm not surprised that no incarnation of Nathan makes any expansive gestures with it, but _you did_." She raised her voice over Duke's protest, leaving his mouth hanging open. "You said let's try, and I think you were right."

Despite his own unease - terror - at where this was going, Nathan couldn't help but let a smile touch his lips as Duke raised his arms in desperate, silent objection, then gave the whole thing up and lowered them with a frustrated huff. "What are you suggesting, crazy woman?" he asked, voice heavy. "Sex? Because I hate to point it out, but the bed is not very big and the walls are very thin, and the automaton is probably going to freeze up and stick us all in some horribly compromising position until the train staff or police or _Butler_ arrive and break down the door."

"I won't," Nathan said, more for the sake of objecting than for any confidence he had in the statement.

Duke raised an eyebrow. "That means you're down with this idea? _You_?"

Nathan stared back. He was - he didn't even know what he thought about this. But he hadn't for instance said, _No way in hell_ , which seemed to suggest that his intrinsic objections were less than anticipated. "I'm not a machine," he reminded Duke, and himself, a little stonily. "I'm a man, with a sex drive. Though I'd imagine-" He looked down at his body "-it's having a few issues right now."

"So long as you're not eying up any passing cars or locomotives," Duke said, but behind the humour his eyes were panicky.

"It doesn't have to be sex," Audrey said impatiently. "As you say, it's not very practical here, anyway. But I'd thought a hug? We could cuddle, touch each other, just be _intimate_ together. Duke, behave." Nathan didn't know what Duke had done because by the time he looked around the other man's expression was all false innocence.

"Alright," Duke said quickly. "Hug the robot."

"I'm not a-"

"Check." Audrey held up her hand and continued. "We don't remember it, but we're _not_ strangers. It's okay to be intimate. And doing that will help the real memories get through."

Nathan extended his hand slowly, almost in a dare, and put it on Duke's shoulder, metal thumb and forefinger brushing the bare skin of Duke's neck... The pressure pads in his fingertips announced touch in their dull, lifeless way. There was still a bruise there, the shape of Nathan's hand, from their first meeting. Perhaps that was why Duke looked so uneasy.

There was no tingle, the way there was with Audrey, but Nathan had to admit that knowing he was touching the other man, that he'd been granted permission to touch, held a certain fascination. He let his hand wander up the line of Duke's jaw, fingertips clicking.

Duke was still staring and frozen. "You're not going to kiss me, are you?" he finally managed, with Nathan's fingers on his lips.

"That's also impractical," Nathan said.

"Oh, for goodness sake," Duke said, with a distinct _grump_ in his voice, and a moment later, Nathan was grabbed and pulled into a hug. "You're hard and cold and uncomfortable and I'm not remembering anything," Duke complained in his ear, but his voice sounded strange and he wasn't pulling away. Nathan blinked slowly and let himself be _held_. This was not, despite his fears, any kind of being _used_ by Duke. Nor had that confused experience in the other world been like that. It was... He imagined Duke, surprisingly soft close-in, long hair tickling like Audrey's, beard bristly against his cheek. He imagined a body that could flush with heat and desire and respond to this... and maybe, _maybe_ , it became less an act of imagination than an echo of memory.

There was an ache in him, somewhere deep, for all he had no ability to feel. He _did_ feel the tingle as Audrey moved in to curl against both of them, her hair brushing his face as she leaned up, her arms encircling. Duke shifted an arm to pull her more completely in. Nathan stayed still, too unsure where his limbs were in the confusion of bodies and concerned about hurting someone if he made the wrong move.

Audrey said, "Why don't we relocate - carefully - to the bed?"


	13. Chapter 13

**13.**

...She still didn't _remember_.

As Audrey lay on the bed, Duke and Nathan were undeniable physical presences either side of her, all of them in each other's space. Nathan was all elegant metal lines against her hips and back, starting to take on warmth from their two living bodies. Duke was a more yielding heat against her front, legs tangled around her raised knee. With them both there, so close, she should _remember_ something. She couldn't help but be disappointed that she did not.

Maybe she'd expected too much. On the other hand, it didn't feel _wrong_ to be taking this on trust, and Duke and Nathan had turned into weird, masculine goo, given the opportunity to finally touch each other and dissolve the tension keeping them apart, and _that_ she couldn't regret. She couldn't claim that the idea to do this hadn't worked.

She sighed and relaxed between them. Duke was warm, and the _thrum_ of Nathan's body ticking over was oddly comforting after a while.

As the minutes passed and she drifted in it - Duke and Nathan, mostly Duke, murmuring over her head - she resignedly admitted to herself that with Nathan being physically changed, there could be no kind of sense-memory from him, even as she pressed her face to Duke's chest and the scent of him rolled over her anew, flooding in with it the familiarity of the situation, even if the actual memories were still missing.

With that, Nathan's presence fell into place alongside them, even without his scent and heat. Audrey made a soft noise of relief, because it wasn't memory, but it was _rightness_. Where before there had only been a... a strained act of faith, the _situation_ resolved into surety in Audrey's mind. They belonged here, like this.

She pressed down tighter, cuddling into the sense of who she _was_ that stemmed from their presence, the three of them together. Nathan's body was hard and cold, but she hugged him anyway, the same as she did Duke.

"You were right," Duke said, his voice very low, very rough, and reverberating in her somewhere deep in her belly, making her want more than they'd decided to do, than was practical or possible or _reasonable_ to do, when they were on a train and had people packed around them like sardines in a can. "This is... I _know_ you. Both of you. It's still faint, and this... the _other_ world is closer, hard to shake. But you guys..." His voice changed again, actually sounding close to choking up. "Cawbrook is clearer, too."

Audrey made a positive noise and shifted, and she could see Nathan better, now, his eyes distant and his form very still, but not with the same blank, shutdown haze as before.

"Man, your body is _loud_ ," Duke said, shifting attention away from his emotional confession. He rattled his fingertips against Nathan's chest, hand crawling under his vest and shirt. "Not that I'm complaining. The rhythm actually gets kind of meditative. But you're like having a dozen clocks in the room."

Nathan's mouth turned down, and he removed Duke's hand from inside his shirt, but not from himself - weaving his metal fingers between Duke's flesh ones, instead.

The gesture was more like the version Audrey had encountered on the outside of the barrier than anything else she'd seen in him since then, and when Duke leaned over and kissed his forehead, crossly dented by the levers that moved his eyebrows, so was that.

"I remember... stubble." Duke rubbed his fingers over Nathan's smooth-painted wooded chin. "Didn't expect that I could _miss_ the thought of beard-burn on my balls..."

"Hah." It seemed to Audrey that she ought to have an equivalent of that memory of scratchy pleasure, but she could not rouse it from the depths of her brain. She sighed and stirred herself, finally. "We should go. We _will_ have to venture out again, unless we intend not to eat tonight."

"And we're just going to act like ourselves?" Nathan said carefully, looking unconvinced.

"We're going to act like who we need to _be_ ," Audrey said. "Whoever that is."

"Considering I've earned a reputation for being lousy at cards," Duke said, pulling a face and reaching into his jacket for what was left of their money to pass to Nathan, "you can try your hand with this, if you want."

* * *

Passengers were just beginning to gather in the dining car as the three of them arrived, and they attracted a few stares and comments. Audrey wore the pared-down dress, but had not got quite so far as to put the sweatpants and T-shirt from the police station back on, however much she'd been tempted. Nathan was interested and stiff and awkward and generally very un-automaton-like. Duke doggedly interacted as equals with them both. The first argument didn't break out until lunch was being served, and the Maitre D' was brought out by the staff to protest Nathan having a seat.

"You know," Duke said crossly, "I _paid_ for three of us, even if technically the automaton didn't need a sleeper. Really that means not only does he get to take up a seat wherever he wants, but you get to serve him a meal as well."

"-That's _not_ necessary," Nathan surged in, a bit snappishly. Audrey thought it more from anxiety than anything else.

"It is, in fact," Duke said. "If you don't want to eat it, I'm pretty sure Audrey will."

"Starved and on the run for two days," she prompted, at Nathan's astonished look, and crossly to the train staff, "Well, if we _paid_ for the food..."

"He's not hanging over my shoulder like some freak show," Duke said testily.

"No, I'm _not_ ," Nathan agreed, with a new surge of resentment.

"I mean, how am I supposed to focus on eating while he's doing that? Lock may get off on it, but _I don't_."

Lock, as it happened, was staring at their performance fixedly from across the room, Butler in place as usual. A lot of people were staring. Nathan's face had developed a locked cast which might be the automaton equivalent of a blush. Or just sheer terror.

"Very well," the Maitre D' said, clipped. "But we will be re-examining the regulations, I assure you, _before_ your next journey."

"Fine by me," Duke said. "I'd rather fly."

The annoyed man gestured for the waitress to get to it and turned on his heel in a hasty exit.

"Miss, I'm sorry for the disturbance," Nathan said to the waitress.

"He's _not_ sorry," Duke grumped. "He's just polite. You people caused the disturbance."

"It's still regretful that there was a disturbance because I was here." Nathan was very intent and recalcitrant, and Duke rolled his eyes and gave up, and let the waitress flounce away. Nathan growled at him in a low voice, "I was _hoping_ to talk them out of spitting in this food, if you intend to eat it."

Duke winced. "Probably no helping that."

If that had happened, they couldn't tell, and Audrey ate the food anyway, including Nathan's, though Duke approached it more dubiously. Audrey had a suspicion that portions in this world were smaller than she was used to, because two meals made for the first time in days she'd felt _full_.

They were getting covert glances their way every so often. Nathan's fingertips rattled against the table top. He didn't have the distraction of eating.

The promised singer was due to start up in the entertainment car after dinner. Audrey resisted the urge to hide and dragged the men to accompany her there. Nathan was acutely discomforted by the situation. Duke was clearly out to cause trouble in reply for Nathan's discomfort, and that was mostly discomforting Nathan more. But Lock had been looking their way in a fashion Audrey did not like, and she couldn't help but feel they were safer if they stayed among company as long as possible.

"Here." As they were walking into the entertainment carriage, she felt the familiar texture of Nathan's gloved hand against her wrist. A moment later, he'd thrust the wad of notes Duke had given him into her hand. "I drew enough attention at lunch."

Audrey turned her face up to him and offered a sympathetic wince of a smile. Nathan's particular rebelliousness was of the digging-in-and-not-moving kind. In this world, he'd been quietly asserting his humanity for his whole existence. He was _not_ going to barge into a card game and demand to join its human players. Duke was asking too much.

For _her_ , on the other hand...

"No fear, Wuornos," she told him, flipping the wad of notes jauntily in her fingers. "I've got this."

His smile was nervous and he didn't, perhaps, look the most reassured.

"I can behave," she said, giving him a narrow look back. "Come on, let's find a game to join." Mrs Murphy was across the room and lifted her hand in a wave, so Audrey lifted hers back and headed in that direction.

"My dear Miss Audrey," said the large, cheerful man with the cough from the day before. "And your... servitor."

Audrey curled her fingers into the front of Nathan's shirt protectively, shaking her head. "This is Nathan. He's travelling with us," she said, clipping the words. "You don't mind if we - well, _I_ , since I don't think Nathan will participate - join the game again? I've got the bank today." She wafted the wad of notes.

"Of course," Mrs Murphy said.

The men looked a little helplessly behind her for Duke, but he had gone straight to the bar and was diligently ignoring everything going on at the card table.

"I - I suppose so," said one fellow in a suit. "But no using the mechanical brain to help out, Miss." He waggled a finger at her.

Audrey raised her eyebrows. "That supposes I'd _need_ his help." She sat down at the table and cracked her knuckles _very_ loudly. "Let's do this."

Everyone in the carriage turned to watch her take her place at the game.

It wasn't that people weren't used to women joining in the cards, Audrey thought with a grim smile that hopefully conveyed just the right touch of belligerent nastiness to everyone watching. But people weren't used to seeing someone of Audrey's social position - the social position that all the markers of her appearance and the persona they'd established implied - joining in their activities like an equal.

Duke took a chair to one side with a couple of beers lined up and one in his hand, and smiled beatifically when someone shot a questioning or outraged look his way, all the more happily every time, and did _absolutely nothing_. Nathan, meanwhile, perched behind Audrey, watching with a sort of gleeful intent that seemed, actually, to have no problem whatsoever to his playing _her_ mechanical shadow.

The evening went better than Audrey thought they had any right to expect. It crossed her mind that had this really been the sort of world it pretended, things might not have gone so well. But presumably these were at least _some_ of them real people with outdated attitudes imposed upon them. Maybe the people within struggled to break out just as Duke and Nathan did.

All the same, Audrey did not allow herself to do much more than hold her own at the cards, figuring she'd better not be _too_ proficient or the goodwill might start to sour.

A certain liberal contingent of the passengers delighted in the discovery that they could have a discursive conversation with Nathan, just like they could any moderately argumentative human being. Even if it was a slightly patronising sort of delight, it had to be better than treating him like furniture.

Duke slouched in his chair exuding a minor level of entertainment with the world and a sense of being just too tired to care anymore. He was going relatively light on the drink, but had one in his hand often enough that it seemed inevitable he wouldn't be completely sharp by now. Perhaps that didn't matter, for him, rogue that he was.

For her part, Audrey wanted to be as sharp as possible if it came to a fight. She was cupping a glass of wine and determinedly making the contents last, hoping the other players wouldn't notice how little she drank. She did want to appear sociable, after all. There was good reason for their determined socialising - safety lay in numbers.

She had not really supposed that she could stretch the game until morning, when the train's staff would be up and busying to clean the carriages, providing another barrier between themselves and Lock and his killer automaton. The party in the entertainment carriage began to break up around 3AM.

Lock had been there much earlier; watched them with hard, suspicious eyes, and then retreated, leaving a few of his cronies hovering. He'd returned perhaps an hour ago with Butler. Their intention had been rumbled, Audrey guessed. Endgame time.

The staff had closed up the bar hours ago, but allowed patrons to purchase bottles before closing. Most of those were drained and empty by now. The piano had been abandoned by the professional entertainment hours even before that, and the last amateur tinkler on its keys had left not long since, so it stood silent now.

During the evening, the train had been paused on the tracks in the stop that the passengers had been complaining so bitterly about at lunch. It had enabled them to spend the evening's entertainments without being rocked by the insistent rhythm of the wheels. Now, as the evening wore down, there was a rumble again from the engine, and the train whirred and groaned its way back into movement.

The windows were covered by lush, red curtains, to avoid facing the passengers with a constant view of the darkness and their own reflections in the shining glass - and also, more pointedly, the reflections of other players' cards. Audrey went to peer out through a gap, but could discern no features in the silent, dark countryside, only the indistinct movement of the nearer shadows of trees and bushes bordering the railway line.

She turned as she heard the last table get up to leave, and then there was no-one left in the room except the three of them, with Lock, Butler and the two cronies who'd remained all evening.

Audrey weighed up the latter and judged them to be drunk and tired, but her assessment of Lock and his automaton was less confidence inspiring. Lock looked refreshed; back in his cabin, he'd probably slept.

Duke drew the gun from his ankle holster and filled the carriage with its low, preparatory 'click'. "You fucking _bastard-_ "

"Now, please," Lock began, his voice a sneer. "Not so much an _attempt_ to talk-?" His eyes flew wide as Nathan moved.

Nathan was not armed and didn't need to be, for he had no hesitation in hurling himself across the carriage at Butler, the weighing debate in his eyes turning swiftly to action as he gauged the face-off between Duke and Lock. Audrey understood - Butler was largely impervious to bullets, as Nathan was, and the only way to keep the power in Duke's hands was for Nathan to take Butler out of the equation.

There was an immense slam of metal as Nathan ploughed into the other automaton, carrying him into the carriage wall with a force that shook them, even noticeably interrupting the rhythm of the train's motion. His hand fixed over the side of Butler's head, and he tried to slam it repeatedly against the wall, presumably working towards a similarly dazing result to the one Duke had achieved with a bullet all that time ago back in the airship. Butler managed to steady himself and clamped hands on Nathan's shoulder joint in return, but Nathan ignored the grip entirely, continuing to focus on Butler's head. An uneasy whining, groaning, locked-grappling ensued between them.

Lock visibly grit his teeth and pulled his eyes away from the spectacle of his reliable protector occupied elsewhere. He dragged his eyes back to Audrey and Duke. "You're going to shoot me without preamble?"

"No, actually." Audrey plopped herself down at a table nearer to Lock but well clear of Duke's line of fire and the automaton battle, her own gun settled in her fingers. "I rather do want to talk. _Where's Malcove_? This is his 'Trouble', isn't it?" She tried hard to put confidence into her voice and speak as if she already knew the facts, as if her memory was not a gaping void.

"And you'd do _anything_ to keep it in force," Duke said, picking up and running with the same approach. "Why?"

"Why _wouldn't_ I? Lock spluttered, co-operative in his incredulity. "How much greater is this world than the one we came from? Outside I made mere powerless props! Here, I invent reality! From a world that is dull and tired, Woody has brought back the age of _invention_!"

"Reinvented the age of invention, more like," Audrey said. "Where is he?" She cast an uneasy eye toward Nathan as his shoulder let out a groan and Butler appeared to achieve more purchase. Her head was pounding and she was worried, damn it, because she knew Nathan wasn't invulnerable and Butler was bigger and more solid in the body, which suggested some degree of weight and power advantage.

"Waiting in Heppa," Lock said easily. "I must admit, I hardly expected to see you all the way out here. Especially not after I'd thought you'd been _dealt with_. And to run into you by chance..."

"'Dealt with'?" she picked up. "So it _was_ your people behind that."

"I should shoot you now," Duke said.

Lock's face scrunched in puzzlement. "'My people'...? I should have imagined it to be a particularly memorable occasion when I pushed you from that airship with my own hand..." His words grew slower as he peered at her. "But you don't _remember_ , do you? That fall... I'd wondered how you'd survived unscathed. How you were so calm at our first meeting again here. You don't remember!" He started laughing.

Audrey felt her face burn. "My memory may be shaken up a little, but I still know I have to deal with _you_. I still know who my friends are." She focused on Lock's face, trying to burn back through those lost memories. If _he_ was the one responsible for their loss...

One of Lock's cronies moved, diving under a table at the same time as evidently reaching for a gun, for there were shots coming from under the table in the next instant, scoring grazes and splinters from the table top, scoring a slice from Audrey's hand as she pulled back, leaping up. Duke shot the other man, who wasn't fast enough to copy the move and reach safety. He tried to pull the gun back to cover Lock but was forced to dive around to hunker in next to the curved bar counter as a further shot came from the man beneath the table. Audrey backed away, pressing against the windows. There was nowhere safe to go without running across the direct line of fire. Her own gun had been knocked from her hand, and she did not know in which direction it had been sent. Her eyes crawled around, but she couldn't see it.

"So, you like this world," she said, throwing guesses out to the void. "But you, you're just a normal person. Why would you do all that? Why attempt murder? You'd go so far to keep something that's fake? Something fake that's going to cause _real_ problems for Haven? I've been outside the scope of this Trouble. There's a wall around the town, but people are _noticing_. There were men from a government agency of some kind..."

"You've been outside?" Lock's brow crunched in surprise. "I was - my foray out here was to investigate that wall. I couldn't get through it. Then again, you _did_ tell me you were immune. So... you've been through to the other side, but no one else can." His quick smile turned into a snicker as his eyes flicked toward Nathan. "I guess we know for a _fact_ that Wuornos isn't immune."

His amusement sparked rage in her. "Nathan's not immune," she agreed. "You can't be _proud_ that you did that to him! People aren't something you can screw around with as you like! We need to put things back how they were. I need you to take us to Malcove."

"I'll take _you_ back. That immunity could have its own useful applications for us. It may have been hasty after all to throw you away... Not so interested in Wuornos and Crocker, sorry. Though I'll admit some curiosity as to what the _caterer_ has to do with all of this." He snorted. "And maybe I can reprogram Wuornos. Give Butler a few days off... Probably I'd have to make a few physical modifications..."

Audrey's brain whited out with fury. Duke made a move to try and shoot Lock despite being otherwise engaged. Nathan was fortunately too busy with Butler to notice. "I _hope_ that Butler isn't a real person in there," Audrey grit. "Or I am throwing the fucking book at you when we're back in a world where my police badge _means something_."

Lock's mouth twisted and he looked pensive. "Do you know, I actually _don't_ know. That _would_ be weird. But I think you can relax your little blonde head. As for Wuornos, probably it'd be too much effort to repair him anyway, once Butler's done."

The screeching that accompanied the statement was Nathan's shoulder finally giving way under the force Butler was applying. His shirt was already torn. Nathan moved the joint, glancing at the damage, and appeared to lock it with the arm half raised, compensating. But his grip had been weakened and Butler had broken the status quo of the grapple they'd been set into from the beginning. Nathan, shoved back, skidded heavily with both feet braced wide, just catching himself before he hit the wall.

Duke was swiftly reloading and Audrey hoped that the automaton clash was distracting enough that Lock and his remaining man hadn't noticed.

Despite his damaged shoulder and the unperturbed state of the enemy after his efforts so far, Nathan waded back in. This time, the automata traded blows that rang around the carriage. Metal screeched under stress as they pounded each other across the limited space in turn, splintering furniture with no thought for where it fell. Nathan had _definitely_ been holding back in the fight back aboard the airship, but he had no such qualms against the larger automaton.

The fight had split Audrey and Lock to separate sides of the carriage. "He seems to be doing okay to me!" Audrey shouted to the villain.

Lock tipped his head.

Duke squashed himself flat against the side of the counter and looked scared.

Nathan hurled a table at Butler, bouncing it off his head and knocking him down. He turned, and instead of pressing his advantage on the other automaton, took the bought seconds to go after Lock and his crony. He wrenched away the table that the unfortunate henchman was using for cover, and purely by accident clipped his head with one of the formerly bolted-down legs on the way. The fellow sprawled, dazed.

Duke broke cover and ran for the downed Butler. Aiming to make good the exchange, he set the reloaded gun into the socket of the automaton's eye.

"Don't!" Audrey cried out. "We don't know _for sure_ that he's not real, too!"

Duke amended his aim and shot Butler in the forehead, keeping him down a few seconds longer. "What the fuck do we do with him, then? I can't hold him any other way, even _Nathan_ can't hold him!"

Nathan had kicked the gun from the fallen henchman's hand and was reaching for Lock's throat. Lock yelped and tried to twist away. He actually had enough bulk to convincingly shift Nathan when his hands shoved at the heavy clockwork body.

"If we can get him off the train...!" Audrey said, and spun to rip the curtains from the nearest window. She raced to help Duke by throwing the loop of cloth around Butler's shoulders as the automaton was lurching up. Duke shot him again, but the bullet just glanced off, and Audrey made a sound of pain as the ricochet seared the side of her head.

"You-" Duke's face twisted in horror. "Oh my God, are you all right?"

She could feel blood in her hair, and her consciousness reeled for a moment. But if it had penetrated or cracked her skull, surely she'd feel _more_. "I - I think so. Butler-" She leaned on a table clutching her head, while Duke took over with the curtain, trying to wrap it to restrain Butler's arms. Audrey _definitely_ didn't want to fall - the floor was a sea of broken glass from the bottles and glasses knocked over in the fight.

Duke broke an intact one over Butler's head rather than risk another bullet, averting his face as he sent broken glass everywhere instead. But he could not keep Butler down alone, and as the automaton grabbed Duke hard enough to make him cry out, Nathan was forced to abandon Lock and re-engage Butler.

"Get off him," he choked with stuttery rage as he wrenched Butler's arms from Duke.

"Lock-" Audrey gasped. If Nathan wasn't, then Duke or herself needed to deal with him. Nathan had shoved him aside hard enough to daze him, but he was trying to reach under furniture to retrieve her own dropped gun, working around the broken glass. Audrey clawed her way toward him, leaning on tables, narrowly avoiding the fighting automata. She fell on her knees, trying to ignore the glass still on the floor because if she _didn't_ it was going to be too late. Their hands landed on the gun at the same time. Audrey jabbed her fingers at Lock's eyes. Wasn't sure if she missed because he moved or because she was still dizzy. She gripped the gun hard and got her knee on top of the handle, using her body weight to at least keep it from Lock, even if not claim it herself.

The door of the carriage opened and a startled exclamation ripped the air. Two of the staff, one a guard and another a waiter in night attire, stood gaping there.

Nathan swung up from a temporarily downed Butler, his damaged shoulder sparking as he moved, gears grinding inside him, and he held out his Heppa police badge, the leather denting between the force of his fingers. "Get out and stay out, and keep anyone else out!" he barked.

Audrey thought furiously... She hadn't twigged, perhaps, but they'd been travelling at least some of the night, and she wasn't sure just whereabouts that scheduled stop had been. Was it possible they were back in Heppa jurisdiction now? That Nathan was a legal person and a lawman again, someone with actual power and influence? Or was he bluffing? Either way, the train staff's eyes widened further as they saw the badge and they lurched back out of the carriage and drew shut the doors.

Then again, they could hardly be blamed for having that reaction anyway. Butler grabbed Nathan before he'd fully turned back around and pulled him down.

There was an almighty _smash_ as Duke hurled the already pulled-up table into the window Audrey had stripped the curtains from. "Nathan!" he yelled. "We need to pitch the Terminator off the train!"

An _excellent_ plan, Audrey agreed, and one much easier said than implemented.

"You won't win," Lock puffed in her ear. "Whole world arrayed against you... Woody holds the stage..." His face was red and sweating from his exertions.

"How come... you _remembered_?" Audrey gasped. "It's Woody's... Malcove's... Trouble, right? You should've had… no idea… who I am! Who _Nathan_ is… If I'm immune... it should be _me_ and _Malcove_ , surely? Are you... the one who's really Troubled, here?" She stared up at him.

He blinked. "We all remember the world Before. That place of hellish tedium... The four of us were going to make our glorious plans reality until Wuornos, the _oppressor_ , shut us down! But in our act of defiance, we made our _own_ reality! Why should we not remember our own history?"

He was making a dramatic meal of it and then some, Audrey thought. "No, no, you _wouldn't_ ," she said positively, more to herself than him. She _knew_ it, the surety flooding into her, instinctive and sudden. With that, and this close to Lock, the memory returned to her in a rush. His face had been this close to her before, just as red and strained, but _leering_... There'd been sky beneath them, reeling out forever. Behind Lock, above them, three other faces were arrayed. She saw them as clearly as the airship, all so _proud_ of what they had done...

 _You're the only one who knows this isn't how the world should be. Kill you, and we get to keep it forever_. The voice rang through the pain in her head... that much was not in the memory; that pain was _now_.

It wasn't Lock's voice.

Malcove.

But it had been Lock who did the dirty work.

She felt again his hands on her as she grappled with him; her heels skittering on the edge of the deck; his grip on her neck. "Don't do this!" The terror as she pitched over the side of the airship, out into the blue.

She'd landed... it felt like she had landed on _clouds_ for an instant, until she realised it was the expansive off-white airbag of another airship passing below. She'd tried to keep her balance atop the billowing, shifting stuff as it moved onward, coming in toward one of the ground-based ports on the outskirts of Heppa. But as it made the final manoeuvres, she found herself slipping off the side, the airbag offering no handholds for her clawing hands...

She'd awoken on the pavement, memory-less, in clothes that weren't anything like what people were wearing around her. She was accosted by leering strangers almost the instant she'd gained her feet. They'd regretted it, and she'd gained clothes and money, but not any _help_... When the police had come, they'd tried to arrest her.

The police had been sent by Malcove in case she'd survived. Malcove who controlled... _everything_...

But maybe the inspiration and power had never been his alone.

"I think it's all of you," she hissed, mustering strength from out of the memories' confusion. "Which makes me wonder what taking _you_ out of the equation will mean for _everyone_."

The jab she sent at the juncture of his arm and neck make him choke as his nerves went numb, and she managed to wrest the gun from him. She moved without thought, almost in a daze, setting the weapon to the underside of his jaw as his eyes flew wide and his lips started to shape a "No..!"

Audrey hesitated.

The fleeting memory burst back into her brain, of his hand on her neck, his arm around her waist. His hand fixed over her wrist in the _now_ , fingers digging into bruises left by Nathan, trying to force her hand away, successfully pushing it back a few inches. Their previous encounter rushed through her like a nightmare, as he picked her up and slung her over the airship's side, and she tightened her fingers like there was no other possible response.

Lock jerked and slumped and Audrey wrenched back, slipping onto broken glass in her haste to avoid his head landing in her lap. His head adorned with the new red bloom in the centre of his forehead.

She heard and felt nothing but her pounding heart, even though she knew, distantly, that she was cut.

There was an exclamation from Duke. Audrey turned her head, moving like an automaton herself, and saw that Butler had suddenly gone unresisting between Duke and Nathan. They stopped trying to wrest the automaton toward the window, and looked at each other as Butler clanked into a relaxed position and didn't move.

"Hey..." Duke poked Butler. "Are you... alive?"

"I am awaiting new instructions," Butler said, voice lacklustre.

"No point carrying out Lock's now," Nathan said slowly. "You should probably start helping the train staff by tidying up this mess." He disengaged his grip on Butler and cast a concerned look at Audrey but didn't speak to her, yet.

"Uh, yeah." Duke's glance at Nathan asked, _seriously?_ , but he reluctantly disengaged, too, and said aloud, "Yeah... Butler... what he says is probably best."

Lock's remaining man scrambled up dazedly and tried to make a run for the door, but Nathan caught him in a few strides, and cuffed him efficiently. Though Nathan's shoulder wasn't moving well... There'd be more repair work to do.

Audrey wondered how much time they had until the train drew into Heppa.

She moved away from the man she'd killed. Her memories, sluggish and jumbled, were still present enough to tell her that he wasn't the first person she'd killed.

Duke reached her first, with Nathan occupied. He extended a hand down to her. "Are you all right?"

Audrey pulled on his hand for the leverage to hurl herself into his arms and hold onto him tight. "Oh, my God, Duke... I _remember_..." She kissed him, hard and full, trying to make up for the days of _not remembering_ , _not trusting_ and _not loving_. She felt his relief through the embrace, his body relaxing and untightening with her, holding her far more naturally.

"So fucking relieved," he groaned, pressing his face into her hair. "...Um." He pulled back. He was blinking, a little. "I uh, don't remember, but at the same time, I kind of do. More than before."

"Mine's not completely back, yet, either," Nathan said, attaching Lock's man to a safety rail and leaving him. "But I have a lot of dim impressions, and I- The things we found out before, outside in that other place, they're a lot easier, too."

"I always knew I loved _you_ ," Duke said to Audrey. "From the first moment in that Heppa port bar, even though I didn't know what it meant." He cast an apologetic eye to Nathan. "Not so much, sorry. I guess there were… too many other complicating factors." He held out a hand to Nathan, nonetheless, beckoning him in.

"You knew you hated me right from the start? Almost _supernaturally_ so," Nathan suggested, with a humour too subtle for any mere machine, as he nervously held himself back from the embrace.

Audrey sighed and pulled him in. Watched Duke curl an arm around his waist and rest a hand on his ass. "I think Lock was a part of it," she said. "There are - were - four of them. Maybe they're all controlling a portion... This change to the world is so _vast_ , so _detailed_... If Lock was the ideas and design man, his death probably leaves a big hole. Maybe things will start to unravel now. If Lock's the one who was ready to kill to keep this going, maybe the others will be... easier? We need to finish this either way. We have to get back to Heppa and confront Malcove."

Nathan nodded. Audrey touched his face, smiling, feeling tears in her eyes as she wished he were _flesh_. But he closed his eyes and relaxed into her touch nonetheless, just as he always did. "Audrey..."

There was rustling and clanking from the other side of the carriage as Butler restored a few tables to their more-or-less correct position and started scraping up glass from the floor with his hands. That was slightly surreal. Audrey shook her head.

"I think he really is just a machine," Nathan said, a bit hopefully. "A creation of this world. But now, there's certainly no need to kill him."

It did not escape her that while Nathan used the word _machine_ , he also still used the word _kill_.

Wow, she thought. This world... it really had created whole alternate histories for both of them. Whole _other lives_. This was going to be tricky, and kind of interesting, now that _she_ had her own memories back.

"Okay," Audrey said. She rubbed her aching head. The ache was starting to subside, except for the line of pain around the bullet ricochet. "Somehow we're going to have to explain all of this to the train staff."

"You both need some TLC." Duke touched her hair, close to the wound. Audrey wasn't sure if it was the head wound or the proximity of Lock - and the recall of that traumatic near-death experience - or _both_ that had brought her memories cascading back, in the end. "I need to get this cleaned and looked at."

"Not quite yet." Nathan shuffled apologetically and they both looked at him. "If we wait just ten minutes before we open that door, we'll have passed into Heppa jurisdiction for real." He made an uncomfortable gesture that was not quite life-like, not wholly machine. "Then I'll _actually_ be able to claim control over this situation."


	14. PART 4: Chapter 14

NOTE: This is the chapter primarily reponsible for the mature content rating. If Audrey/Duke/clockwork!Nathan sex sounds too brain-breaking for your liking, skip to Chapter 15 after the scene break (about 3,000 words in).

* * *

 **PART 4**

 **Chapter 14**

Nathan was almost rattling with relief as they were finally able to disentangle themselves from the proceedings on the train. The crew had reluctantly accepted his authority, and even that reluctance had peeled away once further automated police had been brought in to secure the wrecked carriage and dead body, but he had no intention of staying to take full charge of the scene.

He had no idea, yet, what the repercussions would be for him going missing these last three days, after jumping aboard Duke Crocker's airship. Had they assumed he'd been destroyed? Counted him a loss already? He would have to return to Heppa Central Command to find out, but that struck him as something he should put off. He didn't want to risk losing his badge and authority and the options they gave him.

Not being a non-person helped to improve his outlook. The return of at least a veneer of memory... awareness... from another life that was not much impressed by all of this, a _real_ life that understood more truly where he stood with Audrey and Duke, gave its own kind of relief, but it brought other complications, too.

His shoulder joint clunked with each movement and his arm seemed loose, and that repair would need to be dealt with before he risked too much further activity. Slipping out on a crime scene wasn't something he'd ever normally do, but he was compromised by both his involvement and physical condition, and had more important things to think about than his duties to a world which _wasn't real_.

"Where are we going?" Duke asked. Despite the return of some of their memories, he'd been wide eyed and fidgety with so many automata around. "We need to get cleaned up - or fixed up." He eyed Nathan's arm. "We need somewhere to crash for a few hours. In Heppa, I always had my boat-"

"We can go to my place." Nathan felt a weird thrill that was half anxiety. Automaton Nathan never had visitors. "We'll have to be careful, because I don't intend to report in." He hesitated. "I don't have any food, or any facilities to make food, so you should pick up something ready-prepared on the way."

"I can live with that," Audrey said. "I am going to be _fascinated_ to see where machine-you lives, Nathan."

"Right now, I'll be most fascinated by his bed," Duke commented, and blinked suddenly. "You do _have_ a bed? I mean, I joked about you sleeping standing in a closet, but if you really don't need to sleep-"

"I have a bed." If he could have, Nathan was sure he'd be blushing. "It should fit you both."

Duke looked a little bemused, but Nathan was damned if he was offering an explanation.

It was midday and the town was a bustle as they headed to the police HQ Nathan's apartment building was adjoined to. The streets were cramped and noisy, cobble lined, dirty and dark from the press of buildings tall enough to block out the light, and although Heppa's sanitation system was adequate, that did not mean that every resident necessarily used it.

"Oh, my God," Audrey said, screwing her nose up and staring in horror at the bustling market stalls. "You know, I don't know if I dare eat anything bought here."

It was odd to view it all through the filter of the other Nathan. This was a scenario out of time and place; colour and detail for Malcove's world.

An airship sidled above them, slowly following the open length of the street at a very low level, casting them into further shadow. It was the Parts Bazaar, one of a number of airships that traded as commercial premises. It dangled a short rope ladder that led upward to a pulley construct - used to bring aboard bolder customers. For the regular customer, it had scheduled stops. Nathan had been a bold customer, on the few occasions when he needed parts and didn't want to wait to requisition them for free from the maintenance section, but the traders had not been overly happy about the weight of his metal body on their ropes. The practice had held him in good stead for leaping out after Duke's airship.

"Fresh fruit, dried fruit and grain should be pretty safe," Duke said. "The milk's gonna be unpasteurised, if you're okay with that... but we could have muesli later." He was looking around with the same intent, brow-crunching double-vision that Nathan felt but wasn't sure his own face could articulate quite so eloquently.

"Okay," said Audrey, swallowing. "I can live with that. I know I ate at the port towers, but I didn't remember hygiene, then, and the towers were _way_ cleaner than this."

"There's a more upmarket district a little further on," Duke said. "We can wait." Reluctance dragged at his voice. Duke wasn't from 'more upmarket' Heppa, he was from _this_ Heppa, Nathan realised, and probably the lower end of this one. This world of dirt and packed streets blocked out by the shadows of towers and overgliding airships.

"Where would you eat?" Nathan asked. "Do you know a good place?"

"It was years ago. It probably isn't still there." His darted glance at Audrey indicated it probably wouldn't be up to her standards.

"No, it's okay," she said, rallying with determination. "Let's go find out."

There was a tiny, cheap bar and eatery tucked down an alley. Duke's face cleared as he saw it, and brightened considerably as he laid eyes on the grizzled old man behind the counter. Nathan blinked, pushing his hazy brain to explore the flare of recognition he himself had, and discovered the memory of the take-out joint that had existed in a rickety shack not far from the school, going back to his and Duke's childhood - a _shared_ childhood, in the real Nathan's memory. Though Nathan had not eaten from there in years, Duke... Duke had practically lived off the place, both before his dad died and then, afterward, maybe even more often.

Nathan resisted the urge to ask if Duke's parental situation had been the same in this world as in the one where they'd shared a childhood. It didn't, after all, matter when they were working toward putting an end to this world. There was no sense indulging his curiosity just to poke at something that could bring back bad memories.

"Hey, Mr. Stacco," Duke said, an almost shy grin breaking out across his face.

"Why, it's little Duke Crocker," the old man said with some surprise. "It's been-" He caught sight of Nathan beside Duke and he stopped, inhaling sharply, his pleasure at the meeting turning to uncertainty.

Nathan didn't like to think that regular people in Heppa had such fear for the sight of a police automaton. He'd never thought about it before, had always put the odd reactions down to nervousness at his metal frame, but the real Nathan curled at least semi-aware inside his head was more tuned to human emotions, and with Duke's attitude... He knew now that it _was_ fear. He held up a hand in a reassuring motion. "Easy-"

"He's all right," Duke said quickly, resting a hand on Nathan's shoulder. It was such a _human_ gesture, and a casual affection that Nathan in this world had never experienced, and it struck him dumb and froze him for a moment. Then Duke thumped his shoulder, waking him up.

"We're only here to get these two something to eat," Nathan said. "I don't have a problem with your establishment. I'm just... with my friends."

Audrey ducked in against his side, her hair brushing his neck, making Nathan smile. "Don't let the tin frame fool you. He's a softy. Oh my God, that smells _amazing_. What's cooking?"

What was cooking was some sort of spicy stew, and Duke and Audrey ordered theirs with no further hesitation. Nathan regretted not being able to smell it or taste it. Unfeeling, he'd lived in such details, and now he remembered that. The machine body had so much _less_ that it really did put his usual affliction into perspective.

Mr Stacco had, back in the day, been known for his willingness to sell the small bottles of beers he stocked to local teens, but he'd never done so in quantity, just one or two with a meal, and Nathan had never really felt like he could push the issue after he'd become a cop, having partaken of the illicit alcohol himself previously.

The old man shot Nathan a few more strange looks while he was busying himself behind the counter and Audrey and Duke thirstily drank their beers. As he turned to clunk their plates down, Mr Stacco said, squinting, "I _do_ know you. Nathan Wuornos. Came here with this one a few times as a kid. Thought you were some kinda town bigwig, now...?" His brow wrinkled and he _stared_ at the automaton body that had clearly never been a teenager in any stage of its development.

"Yeah, weird, huh?" Duke said, in absolute sympathy, though he made no attempt at explanation. The old man shook his head after a moment and moved on.

Audrey was oblivious, having fallen on the food with gusto. "It's good," she said around a full mouth. "Oh, my God. After that _finger food_ on the train... Who is supposed to live on that?" She seemed to have forgotten her concerns about hygiene.

"Hah," Duke said, and picked up his spoon. Nathan was left mostly to his own ticking thoughts for a while. It was strange to watch them eat and be something alien that _couldn't_ and to now have awareness of that.

It must be strange for Audrey, too, to have her real memories back - mostly intact, so far as Nathan could gather, although she'd admitted things still seemed jumbled. She kept casting him pained looks and then turning them into affirming smiles.

With living appetites taken care of, they took their leave of the small eatery and carried on to Nathan's apartment. It was in a block not quite so large as the docking towers, for obvious reasons, but still a large tower building, adjoining the back of the smaller but far grander building of Heppa Central Security station, which faced onto the street in front of it. Duke eyed the police station with nervousness as they walked past it, but there was wary caution in Audrey's eyes as well.

The block Nathan lived in was built for people - officers, trainees - and it would serve any living human adequately. He even had running water and toilet facilities, because some humans _did_ still live in the police berths and the plumbing throughout the building had been left intact. That should contribute to Duke and Audrey's comfort while they were there.

There were, inevitably, automaton officers in the corridors, heading to and from shifts, and Duke's tension and Audrey's very focused interest were palpable as they passed. Nathan nodded to the officers politely, but there was no rule against bringing living people into their rooms. Although it didn't normally happen, it would pass without comment from his more limited compatriots.

"Here." Nathan opened a door labelled with the number 313. It had a clockwork combination lock, the key a sequence of numbers lodged in his brain.

"...Well," Duke said slowly, behind him, as they sidled inside. "I am pretty glad that when you say that you live here, it looks like you actually _live_ here. I was afraid of bare walls and no furniture."

"Mm. It's nice," Audrey added. "I'm glad it looks like a home. If you're both going to live with an extra set of memories in your head after this is over, I'm glad they're not all... bleak and clockwork."

Nathan hadn't thought about it, but he supposed it was a toss-up whether the memories of this Trouble lingered if - once - they ended it. Other people, who'd been less awake and aware while within its grip, might escape unscathed.

"I'm just relieved you have a _bed_ ," Duke said, and went to face-plant himself into it with a groan.

"Okay, although _why_ you have a bed... and a bed this big...?" Audrey teased, her brows lifting as she shot him a querying look. "You been engaging in any not-very-automaton-like activities already, Detective Wuornos, or just secretly hoping for them?"

 _Because I used Garland as a pattern of how to furnish my life, as well as how to live_ , was the answer, and Nathan had saved and scraped for the funds to make himself, piece by piece, at home in this environment the way he'd been accustomed in Garland's. But he didn't say that.

Maybe it had been the _feeling_ that he should have those things. Or that Malcove's Trouble could only go so far in warping his real, human needs within this created life. Even so, most of what was in his living quarter was parts, books and crafts - the latter things to keep himself occupied in place of relationships and human contact.

Duke was already asleep. Audrey had crawled next to him and was beckoning to Nathan with her hand, shifting with intent to indicate space for him on the other side of her. Nathan shook his head and shrugged his clanking shoulder. "I have to fix this." He did not sleep, and was content to watch them do so.

"We'll fix it later," she said, her tone insistent. "Come sleep with us."

Reluctantly, Nathan lay beside them on the edge of the bed. He'd been careful to leave distance between himself and Audrey, but she cuddled back against his metal body and pulled Duke with her anyway. Nathan felt the tingle of her touch from her hair against his face, and further down his body as she wormed a hand beneath his shirt to press it to his chest plates.

"Later," she murmured, her fingers flexing, "we are going to fix _all of_ this."

It didn't take her very long to fall asleep either, and Nathan watched them sleeping beside him on his bed. It was strange right now, and the transformation of his form was a gulf between them. But he'd be real again, he assured himself, taking in Audrey's words. He'd be with them - properly able to be _with_ them - again.

After Audrey's breathing had changed and he judged her sufficiently deep asleep, he edged back out of her clutch and got up. He didn't mind lying beside them - the contrary! - but he _did_ have work to do.

He crossed to the shelves where the parts and the technical manuals were stashed. From the surrounding much more used ephemera, he dug out a box which had travelled with him from Garland Wuornos' house, unused parts from when he'd first been assembled. It rattled softly when he lifted it, but most of the things in there weren't metal - the practical sorts of pieces and spares he'd used long before now. The only things left...

He cast a glance back to the bed, and then took the box into the bathroom, not looking to be observed at considering this, even covertly, even accidentally.

He opened it up using the set-down lid of the little-used toilet as a shelf and stared at the items inside. Another bladder, more rigid and shaped than the one that made his voice, but deflated and shapeless right now. A sort of soft, padded sleeve. Countless small fixings for both. And a slim pamphlet that read, obnoxiously, ' _Owner's Manual'_.

Well, one thing he was sure of was who the hell _owned_ him. As of yet, that book had been read by no-one. Because, he fumed in a sudden spike of fury, no-one else had had the _right_.

Nathan picked up the book and opened it,.

It was maybe two hours later when he returned to the bed and slipped in again at Audrey's side. First he'd had to fix his grating shoulder joint, which had been awkward, but mostly just a matter of tightening everything up that Butler had forcibly loosened. Nothing was broken, and certainly the damage was nowhere near the scale of that done by falling perhaps forty feet from the top of the airship. Even after that, though, he'd had to check over the whole of his clockwork body, including overhauling a bunch of very _specific_ places for the required safety checks, and to clean parts that had never been used. The modifications to his throat had taken the longest. Butler had been able to speak, though it had been a bit muffled, so he hoped he would be able to. There hadn't seemed a lot of room left in the cavity to form the sounds. The most visible and obvious difference had just been a matter of snapping a few fixings into place and connecting up a few formerly redundant cogs. As a result, he now had an obvious masculine bulge showing between his legs.

It had been a very strange process, but Nathan's will had solidified as he worked. _Bloody_ Malcove... the fucking _Troubles_... they didn't get to emasculate or _de-sexualise_ him into some work-obsessed _drone_ , just because that was all Malcove saw! So he worked hard. So he couldn't feel anything. That wasn't justification to re-cast him as a machine!

His dual selves wavered a little, but the one who'd lived this life was fluttering like a caged bird against its restrictions, as game as _Nathan_ was to claim back this part of his humanity, all of his identity... and when they woke up, Duke and Audrey, assuming they were willing.

* * *

They were tired and Nathan would have let them sleep, but Audrey woke up in a flail of limbs after only a few more hours and kicked Duke, waking him up too. " _Shit_ ," she said blearily. "Daylight... What time...?" Then she stopped and peered around, and apparently caught up with the situation. She groaned and flopped back.

"I hate you," Duke said from the floor, having rolled off the bed, hand flailing for a gun that wasn't there on a nightstand that wasn't there.

"I'll make you both some coffee," Nathan said. He could do that. He had a small stove for boiling water for visitors, which he'd bought early on, in more hopeful times, and hadn't used in six or seven years. He frowned. "Tea." Tea didn't spoil, as such, did it? Not so easily as that? He'd still be able to get some flavour out of it, if he put in a couple of bags.

"I guess," Audrey sighed.

"Tea's good," said Duke. "Why do _you_ have that morning rasp in your voice? I thought you didn't sleep."

Nathan ignored the question and went to boil water, figuring that the two of them being awake and alert was the first step toward anything.

When he returned an interval later, the pamphlet that said _Owner's Manual_ was in Duke's hands. Nathan sighed, and the new oiled soft sleeve inside his throat muffled it to a hiss. He had been careful _not_ to leave the box out, but had packed it safely away on the shelf where he had got it from.

"This is freakin' disturbing," Duke opined, waving the pamphlet while Nathan looked for suitable nearby surfaces to set cups of tea down on. It looked the right pale brown colour, but Nathan couldn't attest any more than that for its quality. Duke had bought milk and syrup for his muesli idea, so there was at least that. Audrey's expression as she tasted it _could_ have been because she didn't normally drink tea.

Duke said, obviously feeling ignored, "Who buys a perfect clockwork replica of a human being to _fuck it_?"

"Not Heppa's municipal council," Nathan said.

Duke scrambled for the tea as Nathan held it out for him. "Seriously, man, what's up with your voice? Why's it so muffled?"

It got more muffled as Nathan replied, "There's... it's like a sleeve that goes inside my mouth. It interferes with talking, and it doesn't have any... applicable purpose, so I'd never worn it. But I thought it might be..." Duke was staring at him, tea forgotten in his hand. "I guess it's to stop anything organic from gumming up my works." Irritation helped Nathan to get the words out.

Audrey coughed, almost choking on tea. "Holy _shit_ , Nathan."

"You've got the book, you've seen the box," Nathan rasped at them both. He'd not planned to do this snappishly, but they had to _pry_...

"I was just looking at your shelves, man," Duke protested. "so, so... you _literally_ just unpacked your sexuality from a box?"

"Now there's a metaphor," Audrey smirked. She put her tea down and sat cross-legged on top of the bed covers, She'd shucked most of her clothes off at various stages through her sleep. "And _you've_ been holding out on us." She waved a finger at Nathan as her face pinched in confusion. "I'd thought this was all some kind of revelation."

The mechanisms of Nathan's face crunched with the force of the expression he formed in his annoyance. "I have not. There was a box of 'spare parts' that came with me. I _told_ you, I never thought about it before, I was a _machine_."

"And now you're... not a machine." Duke gulped a big mouthful of tea, and he pulled a face, too, though that could be the amount of syrup Nathan had dumped in it to provide flavour. "So this is, what, a plan? A plan where we get to deflower you?"

Audrey's brows went up. "I hate that phrase with fiery hate, but... When you use it like that, I think perhaps we should stop talking and start doing, all the same."

"You're _not_ going to- I've had sex!" Nathan spluttered. "And I _remember_ it!"

"Not in this life," Duke said. "Or with these parts." The twist in his mouth was changing from sleepiness and bad tea to mischief.

"Kind of makes it a once in a lifetime opportunity," Audrey said. "And if you _remember_ , then you should remember - well, scattered and patchy as my memory still is, I'm pretty sure _you're_ the insatiable one. When we're together alone-" she pointed between herself and Duke "- _we_ usually watch all the bad cult TV that you don't like."

"Right." Duke grinned, momentary glimpses of blocked memory clearing his expression. "Yeah! Vampires in Space!"

Nathan rolled his eyes. "You're _waiting for me_ , that's all. And you like that crap." The memories were hard to access, not anything he'd given much attention to yet. Small things. Pieces of life, day to day. "I'm the one who can't feel."

"Okay, you tell yourself that," Audrey snorted.

Nathan pointed out, "I work longer hours. Meetings. Troubles have got nothing on town meetings. I need to relax somehow."

"Yeah, okay, Sex Fiend Wuornos."

"Fuck you, Duke."

Audrey said, " _Hey_ , stop acting like it's a _complaint_. And anyway..." She narrowed her eyes and looked between them. "Me first. You want to come and lie on the bed with us, Nathan?"

"I..." Nathan just settled for nodding. He reached down and unbuckled his belt, internally starting the clockwork mechanisms to pump air into the new bladder between his legs. It wasn't the first time he'd done it. He'd practiced while they were sleeping.

It was _very strange_.

Duke let out a hoot as he unbuttoned and the bladder unfurled from his open pants, then Duke rolled on his back on the bed, holding his hands over his mouth and belly. "Shit, Nathan," he said, gleeful in the face of Nathan's annoyance _,_ propping himself up on an elbow. "You _have_ been holding out on us, making like there was nothing down there."

Audrey laughed and squirmed to pull Nathan down, poking Duke with her foot as she climbed over the bed and making him yelp. Then she was somehow straddling Nathan's hips, above the pumped-hard jut of his sexual part. She reached her hand down and wrapped her fingers around it, and he gasped as that tingle warmed, impossibly, the unliving matter, awakening a semblance of life and arousal. It wasn't _feeling_ , but it was more than Nathan had ever had in this lifetime. He pressed his face into Audrey's shoulder and just focused on that for a moment, letting it be his whole world.

"This is soft," Audrey said with surprise, her fingers rubbing, then squeezing. A moment later, Duke's hand curled between them both and his surprise coloured the air, too, as his fingers joined hers.

"It's, uh, another bladder, not a solid part. Like my voice box, only more rigid."

"That's for sure," said Duke. Nathan couldn't get any sense of Duke's touch being there unless he relaxed his shoulders and tilted his head to achieve a line of sight and affirm it with his eyes. The sight pleased him more than he would ever have thought it would.

Audrey giggled a little. "You have an actual inflatable cock?"

Nathan frowned, not quite seeing what was funny, although the other set of memories squirmed within him. "It's probably so it can be reduced down and worn all the time. If it was designed to stay rigid, it would have to detach or it'd jut out, and probably get damaged."

"Plus looking far too lewd for _this_ society," Audrey snickered.

"I guess we _all_ have inflatable cocks, when you look at it like that," Duke commented. "Hang on, it gets worse, doesn't it? This is new to you. You seriously kept your cock in a _box_ when you didn't have to?"

"I'm a _machine_ ," Nathan growled, frustration rising despite the situation. He'd been - he'd been _trapped_ like this, in this body, without his real memory, and now they were laughing at him for it. Duke was going to be laughing at him for it _forever_. "I didn't have a use for it."

"It's okay," Audrey said, rocking her body on him and using her hand soothingly. "It's just. Really strange. And it's way funnier than Duke being a vampire, and we laughed about that, once we'd got over the biting me and the Duke almost dying part."

"It doesn't make you less of a man," Duke said, grinning despite himself. "Just a man with... different priorities. And a detachable dick."

"I swear I'm going to strangle you," Nathan muttered.

Duke was busy with his hands, though. The one that was on Nathan's cock next to Audrey's hand roamed, testing the organ's rigidity and flexibility. "This is pretty good," he said. "Pretty true to life. And I bet that if it does go down from all the activity, it's at least quick and easy to re-inflate, right?"

"Let's test it," said Audrey, and Duke guided her down, his hand on her hip, the other staying between them all. She leaned back to provide more space for Nathan to see. Beneath the pale skin of her belly and her lightly downed mound, Duke's fingers moved in her folds, opening her up. They forked over Nathan to ease him in. Audrey made a noise of satisfaction as she took in Nathan's full extent, and placed her hands flat on his midriff, curling her fingers in his shirt. Duke's hand moved from the join of their bodies to entwine with hers there.

"How's it feel," Duke asked, "losing your virginity all over again?"

It was difficult to get past what Audrey was doing to focus on Duke over her shoulder, and the answer to the question was _pretty good_ , in the strictest sense, with her closed around him, engulfing him in that touch that was not quite touch, making him feel it keener than he had yet. Nathan was tempted to let the comment go, but he managed a tight, "Don't mock me, Duke."

"I don't _want_ to mock you," Duke said. "Really. It's better than freaking out, though, and I'd rather focus on the funny parts of my boyfriend being turned into a machine." There was a dazed earnestness in his voice that Nathan believed. His hands on both Audrey and Nathan were constantly moving, stroking, facilitating, as Audrey moved. "I would not be coping nearly so well if our roles were reversed," he added.

"It doesn't seem like it's freaking you out _so_ much," Audrey murmured, grinding back against him, then reaching a hand behind her to palm him through his pants. "You want to swap?"

"I can wait. Leave you to break the virgin ground. Explore where no human has gone before."

Nathan started a protest in a low growl, and then gave up. His body didn't have _desire_ , but his mind was satisfied, and he was all for the exploration of this new territory himself. "Just bear in mind that I _also_ want to get chance to use this thing in my mouth, since I put it in and made myself talk like this."

Audrey frowned. "That's definitely a drawback. Thank you for compromising your voice. If you're uncomfortable, though, you really _don't_ have to. We can stop for you to take it out."

Nathan shook his head. He stared at Duke as he crawled around Audrey and leaned over to kiss Nathan on the lips, closing their mouths together for seconds that stretched. Nathan couldn't feel anything he was doing, and it was too close to see. But when Duke finally withdrew, he said, " _Mouth glove_. God, this would be perverted if it wasn't, you know, _you_."

"You mean-" Audrey's face betrayed her wince even as she breathed harshly, still bobbing on Nathan, and Duke's hand returned to her folds, playing there. "A real person in a synthetic body. Who wants to have sex with us. Who _often_ has sex with us. And is not a sex toy."

"Mm-hm," Duke grunted, and with his hands playing over Audrey, leaned to kiss Nathan again.

"I don't think it's designed for kissing," Nathan tried to say around Duke's lips, but it came out pretty garbled; it _definitely_ wasn't designed for talking.

"Yeah, that's a problem. We have to make the best of it." Duke touched his face instead. "You really want to do that?"

"I really do." Nathan figured that Duke's reticence was due to the general impression that that was what Lock had engaged in with Butler. "Better, probably, in fact. The other, it's, uh, if we do that, it's gonna be pretty passive, I think... I've more adjustable mechanisms in my mouth. The sleeve's altered the shape of it to something more conducive to the exercise, and I have more control up here."

"Don't have to do the other one, either." Duke looked at him intently.

"No. I want to try and use this body in all the ways I never have. I want to _know_ ," Nathan declared. All those years of memories... "If we succeed, I'm going to be someone different. I can already feel that coming back. So much will become meaningless. I need to use this, now, while I _can_."

Duke pulled a face. "Tell me about it. If the last thing I do as _me_ is to fuck an automaton... well, it's ironic, but I'm pretty sure it'll be all kinds of interesting."

" _Interesting_ we can usually manage." Audrey had taken advantage of Duke moving to flatten herself more against Nathan, her hips still bobbing regularly and small sounds interspersing her loud breaths. Her fingers pulled at his shirt buttons, but Nathan slid his gloved hands over hers and moved them back. "I want to see your crazy-ornate chest," she complained.

"Better not," Duke said. "Those plates articulate in a fashion that could give skin a pretty nasty nip if you're pressed up against them. It might be dicey enough for me to fuck him, though I haven't had a real close look at how the leg joints work near his ass. He's had those stone age undies glued to his butt."

"I won't hurt you," Nathan said defensively. "But I _might_ have to lock down and not move much, which is the point I was making before." Hard, cold metal and crunching gears were more suited to heavy work than lovemaking.

Duke straightened up again to slip one hand underneath Audrey's bouncing thigh and the other behind her buttocks.

"Uh. Not at the same time," she said. "And not my ass. Not today. We have to. Stuff to do. Troubles. I don't need to be sore."

"Never a problem for Nathan," Duke smirked.

"Probably why he's the sex fiend." Audrey made a little noise, interrupting her quip. "Doesn't have to worry about fighting Troubles with a sore ass. Oh, you _bastard_ , Duke Crocker."

Nathan craned up, which also elevated his hips to tip her angle, and could see Duke's fingers curled around him and on and inside her, working hard around the rise and fall of her body on Nathan's cock. The pitch of Audrey's breath had changed, and contained a strained wheeze. The rhythm of her measured movements was breaking up.

"C'mon, okay, Nathan can probably go forever right now, and I want my turn before tomorrow."

She gave a final quiver and moved higher onto Nathan's chest, clinging to his shoulder. The little pool of sensation around that new part of him disappeared. Her face was flushed and Nathan could see the tremor in her of her orgasm. He reached up and touched her face wonderingly.

"Your dick's all slimy," Duke observed.

"It'll wash." Nathan spoke a bit stolidly, still wary about being mocked.

"Yeah." Duke was eying it. "But I'm kind of thinking how glad I am this _is_ virgin equipment."

"Oh, fuck you, Duke," Nathan groaned again.

"Yeah, I want _my_ turn on Nathan's Amazing Inflatable Cock." Duke's hands moved, working around Audrey's clinging, sated form for now. Nathan realised that what he was doing was using Audrey's juices to prepare himself, though the position was awkward. "Come on... You might have to lose your nice blanket..." Duke was getting fidgety, but Audrey came back to life, wriggling clear. "We start off this way, then flip? See how it goes?" Duke grinned and bent over; reached behind himself to slap his bare ass. "Come on and play cops and robbers," he goaded.

Duke was very different to Audrey, easy with the idea of Nathan taking charge, pushing him to do so. He left Nathan the control to sink in, judging how much Duke could take, working from the sounds he made underneath him... though he kept up a patter of talk in addition to his body's automatic noises of discomfort or pleasure. It was a trust Nathan hadn't expected, especially when he could not feel what he was doing, and was heavier and stronger now. He was deep inside Duke before hands reached back to pull at his metal ones, and Duke said, "Yeah. More. _More_ ," and then groaned as Nathan obliged.

Nathan had expected that it would feel like having power over Duke, that given the nature of their relationship, it would feel _combative_ , but it wasn't like that. Of course, physically he didn't feel at all, but all the same, this _felt_... very intimate. He stroked Duke's sides as his body moved, and _familiarity_ surged back into him, telling him what to do, what Duke _liked_ , how to best make the other man moan.

Eventually, Duke reached back a stalling hand and wheezed through strained breaths, "You want to switch here, it's gonna have to happen _now_ , or it's not gonna happen, if you get my drift." Nathan stilled and let him roll clear, pause and hold himself and get his breath back. "Okay... okay. How d'you want to do this? Facing or from behind?"

"You don't want my legs on your shoulders," Nathan said with a trace of sarcasm.

"Okay. So can you, y'know, roll over? We're gonna have to get those pants all the way off, this time... If you're _sure_ you want to do this."

Audrey moved in and curled her fingers in Nathan's pants, yanking on them, since Duke had one hand indisposed. "He wants to, alright. Come on, Wuornos, get 'em off."

Nathan rolled over, letting Audrey and Duke pull the garment clear of his legs, amused by their struggles to manoeuvre it over his jointed feet. He had taken the underwear off in the bathroom, already, and now he took up a position on his hands and knees, bracing and locking his body.

"Shit, Nathan," Duke said, still out of breath, and Nathan turned his head and could just about see his shirt being rolled up to his shoulder. "Come on, let's have all of you."

"All of me is full of hard metal edges," Nathan said. "And seriously, I don't think it's a good idea."

"I won't be going near the top of you," Duke argued. "C'mon, the shirt... Let me admire my handiwork."

"I'm not a damn handiwork project!"

Audrey wheedled, "But your chest is seriously pretty."

"Huh." Nathan undid a few buttons and pulled it carefully over his head.

"This is _some_ Trouble," Audrey said, an edge in her voice. Nathan 'felt' the tingle as her touch carefully stole along his side and across his rump. "You kind of have to wonder what they were thinking of when they designed _this_." Her finger and the tingle of near-sensation it brought with it slid somewhere unexpected and Nathan made a sharp, metallic sound in surprise.

"You feel that?" Duke asked.

"You _like_ that?" Audrey asked.

"Yes," Nathan said, hoarsely. "Please."

"It's pretty clear that his body on some level remembers 'human'... especially when you're touching him," Duke said. "Hell, maybe it's because he's a real person that it had to work _this_ way, particularly. I mean, maybe that influenced the design, influenced the world. It kinda seems like the whole Heppa clockwork police thing came from Malcove's view of Nathan, but it was Lock with the mech fetish, so the two clashing visions kind of meshed."

"Mm." Audrey sunk her finger further, making a sound of concentration. Maybe she added another. It was hard to tell from a tingle, but the sense of it seemed to spread deeper. "I don't think you need a lot of lubricant," she said. "This is smooth. A little of mine and it seems fairly easy. "

"Let me at him, then," Duke said.

"Hm. Nathan? Making way for Duke means taking my fingers out. Sorry."

"It's okay," Nathan said, and felt the loss as the sensation retreated.

"It sort of looks like this whole section detaches," Audrey observed with some puzzlement. "Like it could be rotated _here_ and then just... pull out."

"Cleaning," Nathan mumbled, burying his face in the mattress. "It's for cleaning."

"A detachable _ass_?" Duke asked incredulously.

"Shut up," Nathan grunted. " _No_ , it hasn't been in the box."

"Man." Duke was quiet a moment, just scuffling sounds until he said, "Okay, I'm coming in."

Nathan had a sense of the heaviness as Duke settled over him, arms coiling down carefully over his stomach with its jigsaw of plates. But when Duke asked, "Are you getting anything from this?" he had to be honest and respond, "No."

"Nathan..."

"Fuck me, Duke." He coughed a laugh. "Wouldn't that be something to say, that you fucked a Heppa cop, after all these years? I mean it, just go for it. I'm... what I _am_. I have to see if I can find a way to work with it."

"Okay..." The bed bounced slowly as Duke thrust, rocking them both. Nathan braced his hands better, trying to keep his limbs tucked out of the way as the handbook had advised. He counted the thrusts and marked the changes in Duke's breath, and it wasn't true that it left him completely unaffected... because the thought of Duke inside him inspired his _intellect_ , at least, to the abstract of arousal. But there was no chemical payload, no physical component, even an unfelt one, to work with here, and without the ability to see what was happening it was a very reduced experience.

Still, he had given himself over to _having_ the experience.

Duke's rhythm broke up and his movements faltered. Nathan thought for a moment that he'd finished, but he hadn't. He took a moment to catch his breath before he spoke: "Nathan. I want you to see me. I want you _moving_. Everything I remember makes me feel sure that's the way this should be. Like this, it isn't working for me."

"He's right about you trying to field his legs face-to-face. You'd end up concussed," Audrey said.

"No, but... I guess... give me your mouth?" Duke pulled out and rolled around so that Nathan could see him, and a hand encouraged him to disengage from the position he'd adopted with obvious disdain.

Nathan could point out that he was _heavy_ , he was _clumsy_ , he couldn't feel what he was doing, and he was being trusted with his friends' most intimate parts, but excuses felt... unnecessary. The intimacy between them now was natural, familiar and well-worn. Their memories might still not be perfect, but he knew that doing this had regained them much. Nathan stood up, making the bed and himself creak, and walked around Duke. Carefully, with his metal hands, he guided Duke's position until he was perched on the edge of the bed. "Lean back and I'll be able to see you, kind of... I think that's the best we're going to get until we fix this," Nathan said, as he slipped down onto his knees between Duke's parted legs, speaking firmly enough to keep the protest poised on Duke's lips from being voiced.

Duke swallowed. "Go for it."

Audrey caught his shoulders as he leaned back on his hands, and she ran her fingers through his hair, looking down over his shoulder. "I'll just play with this and watch. Duke, if this doesn't carry back with us, grow your hair _long_."

"-I'll take that under advisement-" Duke's voice changed as Nathan carefully parted his lips and took him inside. It didn't stop him adding, " I guess at least we don't have to worry about ass-to-mouth."

Nathan grunted but didn't dare try to speak. His jaw was a heavy duty hinge, so the potential damage... well. He looked up past a soft smatter of dark hair below Duke's belly and along the sculpted expanse of his chest to meet his eyes. When he had that line of sight, he dared close his mouth just the tiniest bit more to increase the pressure, then sliding back carefully and watching Duke's reaction intensify, before he moved forward in a purposeful bob. Duke moaned. Nathan saw one of Audrey's hands slip around his waist.

Nathan bobbed up and down, bringing his hands in to aid the effort. On second thought, he slid one of them under Duke's ass, and let Duke shift himself to onto an extended digit with a moan. He left that hand to Duke and focused his attention on his mouth. On an inspiration, he inflated the bladder in his throat as if to speak, then just hissed the air out, hearing it vibrate against the blockage of the sleeve and Duke inside the sleeve.

"Oh, _fuck_ ," Duke groaned, writhing. He skewed his body so he could extend one hand to touch Nathan's hair without pulling away from Audrey and still push his weight up and down, balanced by the other. " _Fuck_ , Nathan..."

Nathan couldn't talk, but affirmed the success by doing it again.

Duke hunched over further as he worked, until it was difficult to angle himself to see Duke's face any more, but Duke's hand was in his hair, and his chest was rising and falling hard, and the muscles in his belly were twitching hyperactively with the excess of sensation, and Nathan could _hear_ his reactions just fine.

"Fucking Heppa cop..." Duke groaned, leaning forward. "I could never have _believed_..." A long groan ended the statement, and Nathan almost objected as Duke started to pull away, until he saw that Duke's erection was fading, strings of creamy fluid pulling away with it from Nathan's mouth.

Duke leaned completely forward and took Nathan's face in his hands, teasing him up from his knees. Nathan stared and pressed his lips closed tight as Duke tried to kiss him, aware that there was fluid held in the sleeve inside his mouth that he needed to get rid of without spraying everywhere.

Duke settled for kissing him around the lips, and on the nose, and in his hairline.

Nathan stared, and smiled carefully, and disengaged to go dispose of the sleeve and its contents.

When he came back, Audrey and Duke were sprawled together in the centre of the bed. He sat on the side of it and watched them for a moment.

"How do you feel?" Audrey broke the silence, asking it cautiously. "I mean-"

Nathan could 'feel'. "It feels very, very strange," he said, "to think of myself as human enough to do that."


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

Duke puttered around the small apartment, sated and kind of reeling, and resisting the urge to go back to the bed where Audrey was still talking quietly with Nathan, establishing things remembered and not-remembered, exploring the limits of both their altered memories. Duke had kind of had to pull himself away from wanting to touch the auto- touch _Nathan_. Hell, it wasn't as though the guy was very cuddly. Not even when he _wasn't_ made of metal, if the dual set of memories in his head informed him right.

He could get his head around wanting to be all over Audrey. That was all good and... human. The robot thing was still weirding out at least half of him. Or more than half, because the obvious half wouldn't have pulled up the word 'robot'. Admittedly, some of the discontent was because he'd be kind of fascinated to take Nathan apart to properly explore how he worked, and that was twisted as fuck.

Duke played with a little wind-up automaton on the bookshelf. Pinocchio, he discovered, as he put it back down after winding the key and it flailed little hands around a growing nose.

Nathan's bookshelves were something else - yes, this was a life, and it was the life of a guy who didn't require sleep. Old fashioned, highly non-politically correct criminology and psychology texts provided some amusement as he skimmed over lines about the 'lower class base criminal type'. Intellectual mystery novels, foreign travel, zoology, engineering, architecture...

...Duke really wondered how much of it was a product of the Trouble, meaningless, and how much was a manifestation of what Nathan would be doing if he had _time_. All Duke had seen him read in months now was the odd battered crime paperback, true or fictional, and to the best of his knowledge Nathan hadn't touched his craft hobbies since not long after Audrey had come to town and the Troubles really exploded, which meant probably not since he'd become Police Chief, and certainly not while he and Duke and Audrey had been dating.

And Duke and Nathan and Audrey dating was _so weird_ to think about, even if it was still the big thing he'd gone into this already knowing.

Was he going to end up stuck with this divergent two-fork history for good? Duke couldn't say he was thrilled by the idea, but he didn't want to forget his _life_... and it still felt like his real life was here in this world, in this city for large and unthrilling chunks of it. The point wasn't how happy, or otherwise, that life had been. The point was he had _fought_ for it, his hard-won airship, his freedom-

The _Cape Rouge_ was a wreck in a field on the edge of reality, anyway.

He sighed and went back to the other two, giving into the urge to bury his face against the back of Nathan's soft hair and kiss his neck, then slide his hand briefly over Audrey's naked leg as he kissed her, too. "How are we doing?"

"We were saying we should go into the police building," Audrey said, with the tone of a recap. Duke hadn't been aware of that conversation but he was instantly sure that he should have been.

"What is that crazy talk?" he shot back, with a stilted, nervous laugh.

Audrey rolled her eyes. Probably Nathan was doing the same behind him, and... _Oh, fuck, cops_... He'd been focused so much on the fact he was fucking a machine, and on the threesome part, that he'd let those overshadow the fact he was now outnumbered by the _two cops_ that he was fucking.

"We need information," Nathan said. "We need to know who we're looking for. Now that we remember the real world and at least the names and faces they had there, we need to figure out who those people are here and how to find them."

"Malcove and his friends," Duke said. "I know Lillian. The other guy, what was his name? Chris?"

"Cristof Cooley," Nathan said.

"Nathan may have access," Audrey said. "Not necessarily clearance, but we figured we could go in there and see if we can use the police files that originated the warrant for my arrest to track them down."

Duke opened his mouth to say, "Public records office," but sighed. In Heppa, it was all the same thing. Heppa Central Security controlled the information. It even registered _marriages_. He groaned.

"It's not a bad way to proceed," Audrey added. "And since we have someone who _has_ access, because this Trouble did this to Nathan, we might as well make the most of it when we can use his connections to help us out."

Nathan touched Duke's arm in some half-assed Nathany effort at being soothing.

"Okay, man," Duke said, putting his hand over the gloved metal fingers. They shared their divergent memories as Audrey did not. He sighed. "Okay. So... _supposing_ we find Lillian and the other two. What happens then? Lock is _dead_ , and his death broke this Trouble at least a little. I figure that's why we've really started to have our memories stirring up and coming back, now, and other people seem to be getting flashes as well. Does this mean we have to kill them all to break this? Because Lock was- that guy, okay, I didn't know him except as some face in Malcove's Thursday night roleplay group, but he was seriously fucking flipped and he did not leave us a choice. But I'm not sure I'm okay with killing Malcove even if he is a dick, and I'm definitely not down with killing Lillian."

Audrey had been nodding through most of that. "You probably got your memories back more completely because the conditioning of the Trouble had already been cracked by going outside."

"And by contact with you," Nathan suggested in a rasp. He'd taken the sleeve out of his throat, but maybe he'd got a few threads from it caught in his mechanisms to explain the huskiness that lingered in his voice. "Could've intensified after _your_ memory cascaded."

"I really don't want to kill the other three," Duke repeated flatly. "They can't all be murderous psychos. They're just regular guys that come into the _Gull_ once a week to roll funny dice and play their board games and drink my beer."

Nathan grunted a gave a sober nod. "If we have no choice in order to return Haven back to itself, though..."

"We don't want to, of course we don't," Audrey told Duke. "But we _must_ put Haven back. You saw the men investigating this out in the real world. We _can't_ draw their attention to this town, with everything that goes on here on a regular basis! This Trouble needs to be dismantled as soon as possible!" She stood up from the bed and rubbed her fingers through her hair. "Nathan, does your shower work?"

Duke and Audrey showered together. Nathan had already washed himself up post-sex, a process that involved parts that detached for cleaning and then went back, and broke Duke's brain a little even while it fascinated him. Obviously it wouldn't _break_ Nathan to dunk him in water, but it probably wouldn't do him any favours, all the same. So Audrey and Duke showered, leaving Nathan in the living room, no doubt plotting his infiltration of his workplace.

"This whole two sets of memories deal is a bitch," Duke said, running his hand down Audrey's back in the stream of lukewarm water. There was an antiquated boiler, not just antique in design but actually old, and it needed a lot more time to work than they were prepared to give it, which meant their shower was going to be chilly and hurried. "I mean, your memory got messed with, sure, but not like-"

She was looking over his shoulder at him in a judging sort of way and he thought back to her flashes of Lucy.

"Okay, okay, maybe you get it," he allowed. "But seriously, this one messed with us. I don't know if we can just slip back into completely normal again even if we do fix the Trouble. If we're ever going to be the same."

Audrey went quiet a moment before she said, "Me, either, if that helps."

Duke winced and said, "No, that does not help. You mean..." He waved his hand around, grasping. "Your head...?"

"It's not _right_ ," she said, frustration under her voice. He'd turned to face her, but she pulled him around again, her hands on his hips, and started rubbing him a little too vigorously under the stream of water as she returned the favour. "I don't know what it is, because I remember being _me_ again, obviously, Audrey Parker, coming to Haven and meeting you guys, and loving you guys, and that weird case with the plants where we all hooked up. Even the stuff before Haven, which I know is _false_ , I remember just fine. But I guess it figures that I don't remember just what I can't remember, right? I just know... I can feel... that something really important is _missing_."

Duke was desperately unsettled, but Audrey's hands were under his arms and she was manoeuvring his body as if planning to cuff him and put him under arrest. Turning around didn't seem an option, and serious discussion was kind of difficult to wrap his head around. He sighed. "I'm wondering if we're going to end up balancing two sets of memories in our heads for the rest of our lives. But then... I _don't_ want to let go of this life, because I... I _lived it_. But I need to be _real_. This... isn't real. Was never real."

"Huh," said Audrey. "Well, we don't know how it works out, but I can tell you this much. That part of your memory that thinks washing is optional, that part can get exorcised from your brain _right now_. Seriously, I know Nathan has no sense of smell at the moment, but if I am sleeping next to you, this is unacceptable."

"Oh, right." And he'd thought that her being so handsy with his body was just some kind of aggressive affection. "Yeah, okay. Water supply's seriously limited on an airship, you do know that?"

Audrey let him go, finally. When he turned back to her, her hand moved downwards again and he intercepted it with a sigh. "Uh-uh. You start any vigorous rubbing there and we are not going to get any investigating of any kind done today. Well, other than further investigating of each other's orifices."

Audrey snorted, but her face was smiling, her expression soft and concerned, surrounded by her wet hair. She lifted her head away from the sight of Duke carefully washing his crotch, and his cock trying to stir anyway because he was still in the shower with Audrey and there'd been a sufficient break since earlier for it to be moderately interested in that again.

"Was it very difficult?" she asked. "Growing up here."

"Even if I didn't grow up here?" Duke returned wryly. "You know growing up in Haven wasn't a picnic?"

"No, but those streets look like a level of poverty on a different scale from anything Haven has." She shook her head. "It's okay, you don't have to tell me. I know you'd rather keep your mystique."

"Hah," Duke said, because he never had told Audrey about his mother, and the fact he'd basically raised himself and looked after his parents more than they'd looked after him, even in the life he'd started out from. Nathan had some idea, but he was guessing Nathan had never mentioned it either. Possibly because Nathan had always bought the cool-unaffected-rogue act and so considered it was no big deal.

Duke stroked a hand up Audrey's breastbone and neck, then through her hair, separating the strands into the streams of running water. "I'll tell you about it someday. Promise."

"There might not be many days left." She grimaced and shook herself. "This is getting colder. Come on, we should get out."

"To break into a police station," Duke said, with considerable depression, and sighed. "I will tell you that story. Before the Hunter."

"Okay." She turned the water off and squeezed her hair dry. Nathan only had one small towel between the two of them. Duke tried to shake his head dry like a dog, and she laughed and cursed at him, but fell back into grimness as she finished cursorily drying herself and handed him the towel. "How much time do you think we've lost? It has to be at least four days, right?"

"We'll have enough time left to figure out how to stop it, no matter what." Duke tried, but he wasn't Nathan, and there was a limit how much dogged faith and resoluteness he could inject into the insistence that they'd manage to stop a cycle that had already been going for hundreds of years.

"I don't want to leave you," Audrey said. "Either of you. More than anything I don't want to do that. Don't talk about this to Nathan, please." She pulled a face. "His first responsibility has to be to Haven."

"I thought you were mentioning it less." Duke nodded. He towelled himself dry and hung the towel on the shower nozzle, and grabbed for his clothes, because Nathan's apartment was not very warm. Audrey was already almost dressed.

"If I have to leave," she said slowly, "you'll both still have each other."

"Yeah. Yes, we will." And Nathan would be inconsolable anyway, Duke thought, and he did not know how he was supposed to handle that, alone. But he was not going to handle it by voicing it to Audrey.

She smiled in what had the air of a determined effort to be cheerful and said, "I bet you were a _cute_ grubby street urchin, either way," before she slipped out of the bathroom door.

Nathan was hovering outside. Duke hoped he hadn't heard too much of that. "I guess at least I can say I'm no _stranger_ to the inside of Heppa's police station," he offered sourly.

Nathan gave his mechanical smile. "I've been thinking about that. I think the best way to do this could be to take you both in. If I complete my original mission, then I won't need to creep around. I can return with my authority intact."

Duke felt all of the anxieties and suspicions from his life in Heppa slam down on him. " _No_ , you-"

"Duke-" Audrey started worriedly.

Duke held up his hands, fighting habit and fear, his instinctive horrified response to _not_ trust. Because Nathan was a still a clockwork cop, with a limited bunch of options built into him, who would complete his mission at their expense...

He _wasn't_ , and Duke knew that. Nathan wouldn't betray them.

He wouldn't have _before_ , Duke didn't even think, and now that his personality was strongly supplemented with the memories of his original self, same as Duke's own, he definitely wouldn't. Therefore this wasn't what it had sounded like.

"I thought that if I took you to a cell, booked you both in," Nathan said slowly, more wary now for the reaction he'd provoked, "I would have full access to the station. Perhaps as the one to bring you in, Audrey, I could even be privy to dealing directly with the people who were so eager for your arrest. It would be an excellent way to find out the information we need fast. Of course I would make sure you both had a means to escape without me should the need arise, and I would be able to help you from the inside if anything went awry."

"I prefer the creeping in and out plan," Duke voted.

"But this is so much more potentially rewarding," Audrey said. "And more _quickly_ rewarding. The other way may not get us anywhere. But _we know_ that Malcove and his people have been searching desperately for _me_. If they think they have me, surely they'll come. We'll have them-"

"Let's just send Nathan in to look up the names."

"I can do that easiest this way, and much more besides, _without_ risk of being waylaid and reprimanded," Nathan said. "Do you... think that I'm doing this because I want my position back? Or that I perhaps want a promotion?" He looked hurt.

"No," Duke said quickly. "No, man. But this... we need to think about this, okay? Your plans are always insane and dangerous. And this, _this_ is a solid gold Classic Nathan Wuornos Plan. Right?" He looked to Audrey for support, who managed to at least find a smile.

"My plans aren't bad," Nathan said, annoyed. "It's just that I'm always the one still coming up with plans when everyone else has given up on having plans."

"Because you _hope_ unreasonably," Duke qualified. "Back to the 'insane and dangerous' point."

"I think he's right, in this case," Audrey said. "What we were just talking about... _Time_ is so much a factor." Nathan looked between them curiously, wondering what he'd missed. "This could... it could take us straight to the people we need to find in one move."

Duke was left hanging with that. With the fact that their chances - what chances they could possibly have left, with a matter of days remaining to save Audrey from disappearing, hung on this choice... He groaned and pushed the heel of his hand into his forehead. His two selves warred with tension. The Duke Crocker who'd grown up in Heppa did not want to do this. The Duke that had grown up in Haven didn't particularly want to do it, either, but for Audrey he _would_.

"All right," he groaned. "Although I would be _happier_ if this plan didn't primarily involve me waiting around in a cell doing nothing."

"Hey, same here," Audrey said. "But in _this_ world, he's the one with the badge."

* * *

Trying to infiltrate a building entirely populated with on-duty police automata was quite different from sneaking into Nathan's quiet apartment building earlier in the day. For one thing, except for the odd automaton they'd spotted in the corridors, going to and from their digs, that building had seemed _deserted_. Automata did not make unnecessary noise or move around much. Duke had wondered how many of them _were_ standing in cupboards, philosophically speaking. He shuddered and hoped that the rest of the guys at Haven's regular police station had avoided that fate.

Heppa Central Security station was _not_ quiet, even drawing into late afternoona and toward the end of a normal workday, and the on-duty automata were much more alert and interested than the ones in Nathan's apartment block. Duke wasn't going to bother telling himself he'd just been intimate with one to make himself feel better about this. He'd been intimate with _Nathan_. These guys were still creepy.

They had desks, little blank cubicles, unadorned except for piles of paperwork, and frankly Duke couldn't figure out why he hadn't expected that, given that this was Heppa and it pretty much ran on _paper_ , and not steam or clockwork or gas, as advertised. Nathan led him past the desks, hand clamped too tightly on Duke's arm. The cuffs seemed to burn on his wrists and, sure, there was a key in Duke's shoe, but he couldn't get to it _quickly_ , nor while he was being watched. Audrey, next to him, was less tense, despite receiving the same treatment, though she winced at the grip of Nathan's fingers around her arm. The tightness of the grip was probably a combination of Nathan's compromised ability to judge pressure, especially when distracted, and his anxiety about his own plan.

There were only a few officers Duke spied that weren't automata. Truth was that he had never liked the human cops in Heppa much either, but at least with them you had a chance of being able to talk yourself out of a situation. He was starting to seriously worry that some of the officers his other set of memories knew best had been reduced to the almost faceless things after all, until he spied Rebecca Rafferty at a secretarial desk, with her hair pinned in a bun, all buttoned down in an off-white corseted dress that looked... sort of kinky, to his _other_ eyes. He looked again around the room and realised all the cops who remained were male, that the automata body pattern Heppa employed was exclusively male, and felt angry in an undefined way about something he'd never thought about before, that had been so far down the list of what could possibly piss him off about Heppa's security forces, but apparently real!Duke cared about.

Audrey, beside him, seemed to be taking it in her stride.

Rebecca in the corset looked him up and down and he felt a few stirrings in him at the Victorian schoolmarm looks but tried desperately not to show it. If Nathan knew that he'd fooled around with a member of his department, even if it had been before they'd hooked up...

The inner voice that was connected to _this_ world asked incredulously, _What the hell is wrong with me that I can't leave cops alone?_

"The fugitives?" Rebecca asked, eying Audrey. "It's been _days_ , Nathan. We thought you'd been dropped from an airship and were so many spare parts being sold off in the slum district."

"As you can see," Nathan said neutrally, "I caught the fugitives and brought them back. Please book them in."

Rebecca leaned over her desk and picked up her pen, to scratch painstakingly onto a log book, double-checking the spelling of Duke and Audrey's names and the charges against them with curt questions.

"Holy crap," Audrey muttered as Nathan finally pulled them away and onward to the cells, apparently stunned enough to risk speaking up. "Talk about _hostile_."

"This place looked very different ten years back," Nathan said quietly, with an edge of discomfort. "It's not without reason that the living workers left don't like automata." Louder, he ordered, "Quiet!" and jostled her shoulder.

The corridors and the cells they led down to were impeccably tidy. One thing you could say for Heppa security, they kept clean jails. Duke had been in some other cities' jails - those arrests had been wholly misunderstandings - and the squalor did not bear thinking about. But Heppa liked things clean, and automata didn't care about having to do the filthy menial work those high standards required.

Prisoners rattled the bars of their pristine cells, cat called at Audrey, and spat insults at Nathan. A few just spat. Nathan headed for an end cell that had a structural support beam, part of the tall building's core skeleton, running up from floor to ceiling. Duke could see its value to veil them from the view of the other prisoners.

Nathan reclaimed his keys first under pretext of searching them, then released them from the cuffs. He had stepped out of the door and locked the cell before Duke caught up to what he was planning.

"Hey, you can't just leave us here like this!" That wasn't pretence. That was _being prisoners_. Duke pressed up against the bars, grabbing through them for Nathan, curling his fingers in Nathan's vest.

Nathan caught his arm and shoved him back. "Get in there and _behave_ , Crocker." Nathan wasn't particularly subtle, so Duke hardly missed the 'surreptitious' action of another key being slipped into the front pocket of his jacket at the same time. "Sit tight until I come back. I imagine there'll be people who want quite badly to speak to you, once word gets around that you're in custody. Now, I have to go complete the paperwork."

They could still get out if they had to. But what the hell was Nathan going to do, Duke wondered, when he needed to get back _in_ , if he came back accompanied?

Duke watched him cross to the rack where the cell keys were hung up, and he pulled some sort of switch, his shoulders covering up his actions, because when he walked away, the rung on the hook marked with their cell number had a key on it.

"I guess when it doesn't work he'll have an excuse to source a spare or some cutters," Audrey murmured. "Probably blame it on _you_ breaking the lock trying to pick it to get us out." She smiled.

"I am _not comfortable_ with this situation," Duke said. "For the record." He didn't feel like joking as he bashed the heels of his hands against the bars and stepped back, heaving a breath.

Audrey put her hand in the centre of his back. "I don't exactly _love_ it," she murmured, and then even lower next to his ear, "but we can get out if we need to. And we _do_ trust Nathan, don't we?"

"...Unarmed in the middle of a police station full of super-strong mechanical men, we can 'get out'," Duke chuntered.

Nathan would have spare weapons to arm them, when he came back, presumably - but that didn't help while he wasn't there, and while he _wasn't there_ , anything could be happening to Nathan, who'd been missing for days, whose position was not remotely secure. Audrey knew all that, but didn't bother to voice it, just patted that hand in the centre of Duke's back a few times before retreating it. Duke made a noise of frustration.

"We're a trap," Audrey reasoned. "We just have to wait now for the enemy to show themselves to take the bait."

In Duke's opinion, the only trap here was more likely to be self inflicted. But he made himself calm down. They could expect Nathan to be gone for hours while they waited for the information of the capture to trickle through to the interested parties.

They were in the end cell, the cell next to them was empty, the support beam gave a blind spot in the line of sight between themselves and the rest of the cells, and it was clear that Nathan had engineered the situation as well as he could for their advantage. They could talk without being overheard. They could even work, carefully, without being seen. That didn't mean the neighbours were great company, and the intermittent calls of "hey, pretty lady" and much cruder things jarred their wait. A few calls of that nature were aimed at Duke, too. He blamed the suit.

They rattled uneasily in the cell as the time ticked by. Audrey stopped pacing and made herself sit down on the hard bench, only getting up every so often to stretch, exercising her body to be ready for quick action when the time demanded it. Duke _could not_ relax, even though his memories now contained esoteric positions and breathing exercises designed for just that purpose - he couldn't even bring himself to try them. Maybe that was just his orneriness, self defeating, because actually, he had a number of memories of far more benign sojourns in cells not unlike this one: Nathan's idea of a sense of humour all those years they'd been more like enemies than friends.

He thought about Audrey and Nathan, in bed earlier... Thought about a world where all three of them were flesh and not hunted, and their end goal of returning there. Then he thought about Audrey disappearing for twenty seven years, not coming back until they were both old, and with a different name and another set of memories besides, unable to recognise them at all...

The goal of _this_ plan was to give them at least some last-ditch chance to stop that from happening.

Duke had still only calmed himself down somewhat by the time approaching footsteps echoed along the corridor.

Audrey set a cautionary hand to his arm, up on her feet in an instant - and yeah, it could be someone coming down for an unrelated reason. He got better control of his reactions and _did_ breathe, then, accessing memories of calming yoga rhythms. He had to be ready. Right...

The last time Duke had seen Woodrow Malcove, he was swearing up a storm in Duke's bar, mostly about Nathan. Duke had held a measure of sympathy for the guy, honestly, and he could've added some interesting tidbits to that rant about Nathan's parentage, but his loyalties were firmly claimed already and he was damned if he was going to say anything to compromise them and risk it getting back to Nathan's ears. Nathan was absolutely capable of withholding physical affection when he got pissy, and Duke liked getting laid.

His first thought now was that Malcove didn't look like he was dressing up any more... and there was a _lot_ about what he did look like which pinged on Duke as dangerous.

Lock had - now that Duke remembered Lock, he knew he hadn't had a sense of the man himself. He'd just been a guy, and there were four of them who hung around the table in the corner of the _Gull_ on Thursday nights, sometimes joined by others who swapped and changed but always those core four. There were models and dice, and a lot of discussion about rules and airship fuel, and how the physics worked. And Duke hadn't really known Lock because Thursdays was Tracey's evening shift, and Malcove was the gobby one, and Lillian had done all the liaising.

Duke supposed it wasn't surprising that the question Malcove strode up to ask, forceful in his tense posture and clacking heels, was, "What happened to Lock?" What had happened to Lock was already an increasingly churning unease in Duke's belly. He'd been someone Duke knew, and for all he'd done to them on the train journey and to Audrey before that, he'd at least never _seemed_...

"I did," Audrey rapped, from behind the bars, her hands reaching to tighten her fists around them. "Malcove, what the hell do you think you're _doing_? You have to put Haven back!"

Malcove looked confused for a moment, but reclaimed the thread of his anger fast. "My friends and I changed the world," he snapped, "to make ourselves as _gods_. I have been down at Heppa Grand Station, where they dragged out my friend's body from the train, all afternoon, and now you're going to tell me, _what happened to him_?"

He drew a gun. Audrey backed off from the bars, bumping into Duke, who caught her shoulder. "You're going to use that in front of _all_ these witnesses?" Duke demanded, gesturing toward the occupied cells down the line. Unencouragingly, at least one voice heckled back, " _Kill 'em both, we don't care!_ " A few others whooped and jeered.

"They're just criminals," Malcove said. "Who would believe them?"

Duke privately thought that there was no way Malcove would ever risk finding out if anyone would believe them. If he shot them here, everyone in these cells would have some kind of accident before the week was out. A gas leak, maybe, or food poisoning from the jail kitchens. It wouldn't help to say it, though.

"What are you doing with the prisoners?" Nathan's voice right then was the sweetest sound Duke had ever heard, as he materialised out of the shadows of the corridor, stepping into the open.

Malcove scowled and turned, his hand tensing further on the gun, then stared at Nathan. His face changed, and it was like the moment hung there strangely. Malcove's expression didn't add up. But he still pointed the gun at Nathan's face.

"People are remembering," he said. "That means _you're_ remembering... Chief Wuornos." His intake own of breath was, weirdly, sharp and surprised.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Nathan said, looking down the barrel. "Is that weapon loaded? In respect of your standing, I believe you may be unaware you are currently committing an infraction."

"Leave him alone," Audrey said, with barely restrained fury that added layers of conviction to her voice. "You've done enough to him already! Look at him, Malcove! He's a machine! He brought us here! Was it your idea of petty revenge to do that to him, just because he was doing his job, and wanted to see you people abide by the law? Are you _proud_ of yourself for that?! How dare you!"

Malcove's face twisted and the confusion there made Duke's heart flip oddly.

He spoke up. "Malcove... How much do _you_ remember?"

Malcove cast him an angry glare but returned his attention swiftly to Nathan and the gun in his hand. "You..." Nathan was doing his very best impression of the dumb machine, gaze fixed and flat, and it seemed that Malcove swiftly felt silly and gave up, for he lowered the weapon and snapped to Nathan, "I want these prisoners transferred to my personal estate, tonight! See to it!"

"It would be highly irregular to-" Nathan began.

"God _damn it_ , you mindless metal drone!" Malcove seethed. "Follow orders! This isn't a matter of regulations, this is _my city_. I'll take these two out of police hands." He glared daggers at Audrey. "I intend to get the full story of what happened to Lock, and then we are going to take time seeing that his death is properly redressed."

"What else was she to do but defend herself, with your psychotic dog trying to murder her?!" Duke seethed.

"I expect you to escort them _personally_ , officer," Malcove said nastily, and something in his voice made sure that Duke was instantly very nervous of the reasons behind that request.

Nathan didn't question, as he had to place himself as their backup anyway, but Duke hoped he'd spotted it too.

Malcove turned on his heel. "You'll bring them. I'm going to ready my coach."

The seeming unlikelihood of Nathan's humanity surviving such a radical physical transformation was clearly playing in their favour, because Malcove actually stalked off and left them in his custody once more.

Nathan took the key from the wall and came back to the bars, where Duke slipped him back the real key to let them out. Nathan cuffed them both again before he unlocked the cell door, and _sure_ , he was just being mindful of appearances, with the other prisoners only tens of feet away and Malcove potentially hovering in suspicion just out of sight, but it still gave Duke some pause. He could _absolutely_ understand how Malcove would buy the machine act, when one half of his own psyche couldn't shift it.

Duke consciously and deliberately threw the suspicion and fears off once more. "You be careful," he said in a low hiss, leaning in to Nathan. "I don't like the way he looked at you."

Nathan's glass eyes blinked slowly at him. "So far as he knows, I'm no more than gears and bolts."

"Just - yeah. Okay?" Duke prodded, and fell into an uneasy silence. He broke it not more than half a minute later, to Audrey, as Nathan was escorting them side by side back through the building. Duke couldn't tell if it was the same anonymous corridors or new ones. "I don't think Malcove's all there. I mean-" He internally cursed himself for his insensitivity, and especially that little waggling of his finger next to his head.

"I know." She cut him off, tight and tense. "Lock at least _seemed like_ he understood what had happened when we - I mean, he was overblown and _weird_ about it, but he knew who we were, he _recognised_ us. He had a recognisable version of the story behind how this happened. Now I wonder, I'm _wondering_ , if _any_ of them really know what they're doing... any more than everyone else in this world."


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

There was a woman waiting with Malcove at the coach. Audrey didn't immediately recognise her - a fact that didn't necessarily mean as much as it would have a week ago - but a certain familiarity about her was already creeping in as Duke said, "Holy _shi_ \- _Lillian_?"

Audrey took from that that the woman's usual attire was not the whole fantasy Victorian Lady Adventurer look. Audrey didn't know a lot about historical accuracy in costume, and her brain hadn't been indoctrinated to this world with false memories - hah - but she was nonetheless sure that _this_ costume was incongruous in the society she had spent the last few days navigating. Still, the amount of leg and bust on display was of less interest than the multiple weapons, gun visibly riding one hip, a knife next to it, and at least two more discreet bulges in boot and at thigh.

The woman's gaze passed over Duke completely in favour of settling on Nathan, where her expression changed quickly to one of startlement. " _Wuornos_?"

It seemed that Nathan didn't know the woman, either, although his poker face had only been improved by his transformation. He looked at her stiffly, and bunched his hands tighter around Duke and Audrey's arms to push them forward like prizes. "I'm just a policeman."

"A police _something_ ," Lillian said. "Oh, this is just the _best_. Mal! Does Cris know?"

"Not yet," Malcove said. He was standing forward of the coach with the horses, a velvet mane twined between the fingers of one hand and a leather halter strap in the other. Well, at least the guy liked animals, Audrey thought.

"I'm a _man_ ," Nathan asserted, his mechanical words clipped. Audrey's heart jumped as she thought he'd given himself away. Then she realised he'd have made such a response before all of this began. "Not a _thing_. Heppa protects the rights of its citizens. You don't get to call me that no matter how rich you are."

"Oh, fine," Lillian said. "One of _those_. Was it you who was responsible for the uppity automata, Mal? I _know_ that wasn't Lock's doing."

Malcove barely tipped a shoulder. His face had adopted a strange smile and he was looking at Nathan with calculation. "I apologise, Detective. Of course we acknowledge your legal stature. Please, won't you accompany us to keep watch over these prisoners."

Audrey didn't overly like that he _wanted_ Nathan with them. Nathan would have been looking for an excuse to invite himself along, and she'd been anxious for how he was going to avoid being separated from them, but now it seemed they were all too happy for him to be there, that brought a wholly different anxiety. _Too easy_... They had something bad in mind for him, for sure.

" _Lillian_ ," Duke said, putting emphasis on the name. "Look at me. You know me, don't you? People are remembering. _You_ must be remembering. You _know_ me." He tapped both his hands to his chest. "Come on, it's me! Duke!"

She looked at him like she hadn't the faintest clue what he was talking about.

"...Duke! Duke Crocker! Your friendly neighbourhood bartender... Okay, but you recognise _Nathan_?" Duke shook his head. "I think I'm insulted."

"Have you dated _every_ woman we come into contact with?" Audrey asked, mostly for Nathan, who was gagged by his ruse but definitely looked as though he'd like to say something.

"I can't be a friendly guy? C'mon, it's not like that," Duke sputtered, his expression changing in frustration. "How much do you remember, Lillian?" he asked, head-on, the same way he'd approached Malcove. "How much do you really _remember_ from before?"

Perhaps he got through just for a moment. Her eyes clouded and her lips parted slightly as though she'd speak. But then she drew out from her belt, of all things, a _whip_. Audrey, standing next to Duke, cried out automatically as the lash curled through the air toward them. It didn't target her, but caught Duke across the cheek. He yelped in surprise and swore, cuffed hands rising to his face.

"You can cease your vile insinuations," Lillian said. "We escaped that world and made a better one. Made ourselves _Gods_."

It seemed to Audrey that when they got down to it, they all sang the same tune, had the same mythos, the conviction and awe and overblown grandeur when they spoke of this Trouble's genesis.

Duke caught the whip with both hands in a deft move, stepping forward into the curl of the lash as it came around again. "Jesus! Stop it, alright!"

Nathan cut in, fixing a metal hand around the weapon stretched between them. "Violence to prisoners is unnecessary and unseemly."

"Oh, he is no fun at _all_." Lillian looked at Malcove with accusation.

"You thought he'd be that in _any_ world?" Duke apparently just couldn't resist interjecting.

"Don't worry," Malcove said, a glint in his eye. "He's not coming along with us to have fun."

Lillian pouted and yanked her whip back out of Nathan's hand. She coiled it up and returned it to her belt, where Audrey had simply failed to register its shape as another weapon. It wasn't exactly something she _expected_ people to carry.

"Hey, Indiana Jane," Audrey snapped. "You didn't answer his question. How is it that you remember _Nathan_ , even when he's not exactly himself here, but not Duke? Do you know _me_?" The events around the transformation of Haven that had led to her injury were still haziest of all, but she'd had the impression Lillian had definitely been there. She still wanted to know what the other woman made of the answer.

Lillian stared at her as if she'd asked the most ridiculous question. "You're the Adversary and the Great Danger, Audrey Parker. The only person who can shatter our mastery of this world."

"That's... wow, that's exciting." Audrey shook her head. "So how about him, then?" She pointed at Nathan.

"He's the one who forced us to reshape things. Who made it clear there would never be a place for us in the old world." Lillian's mouth curled. "He has been turned into a feeble-minded machine in punishment."

"Hey!" Nathan rapped crisply.

"Relax, officer." Malcove was way too close to Nathan for Audrey's liking, curling his hand around a metal shoulder in faux friendliness. "Let's get these prisoners into the coach. We can hash this out in _private_ at our destination."

"Don't come with us," Duke said, intently, as if trying to get through to another amnesiac friend. " _Nathan_ , go back to the station. _Please_." In reality, it was likely intended as a warning. Malcove didn't have any better fate lined up for Nathan than he did the two of them, once they had that privacy, but where it came to threats upon his own person, Nathan frequently did not notice.

"Don't touch me." Nathan shrugged him off and frowned at Duke. "You'd just find a way to wriggle out and escape without me around to watch you, Crocker." _What can they do to me_? the lift of his eyebrow said.

But Duke had known how to kill him and so had Lock.

Lillian pulled the coach door open and held it. "Do hurry up. Once this tedious business is done with, I want to get back to exploring the uncharted lands in the _Calhoun_."

Duke choked and muttered something that sounded like, "Lara fucking Croft..."

Audrey pushed back as Nathan's hand in the centre of her shoulders urged her towards the coach. Could they not make their move here? Safer, surely, than risking heading on to Malcove's territory and into his power? They were still missing Cooley, but three out of four might be enough to kill this curse. But Nathan's hand was insistent and her eyes fell upon the police automata still bustling in and out of the police station, on the paved concourse outside the building. It was a certainty that they would obey Malcove over Nathan, and they would be drawn by any confrontation...

No. Numbers were not in their favour here, and the illusion of comparative safety and freedom in the public setting was very likely just that. Lillian and Malcove were the secret elite of this world. Who knew what they could control? The police, for certain. The public? Even possibly the environment.

"It's become like some great mythology," Duke murmured in her ear as they settled inside the coach, squashed onto a hard perch with Lillian on one side and Nathan on the other. Duke spoke very low, but Nathan's ears were probably sensitive enough to pick it up, though he stayed carefully unreactive. "It's not so much that they don't remember it. They don't remember it _real_."

Audrey could only nod, afraid that Lillian on her other side would hear anything put into words. She lifted her eyes to search his face for cues.

"There's one more thing," he said, voice rising a bit with emotion. " _That's not Lillian_."

"Stop that muttering," Lillian ordered, hand going to her whip again.

"Don't." Nathan's glare could have snapped her in half. "I _said_ -"

"All right, Officer Tinhead." She flapped a hand dismissively his way.

Malcove climbed into the coach and closed the door, veiling them almost in darkness. The windows were shuttered and the only light came from streetlights filtering in through the cracks. He bashed a fist on the inside wall and the coach jerked into motion. Malcove sprawled back, facing them, and he wasn't a big man, but he managed to take up almost all of a seat the same size the four of them were perched on, his back facing the direction they travelled. His contemplative expression was superior and his body language one of command and authority that far exceeded the personal charisma of the man Audrey remembered.

The background noise of the coach's progress was loud enough for Duke to continue with another whisper, as he raised his hands to his lips to fake a cough and kept them there an extra moment. "That's not _Lillian_..."

The coach bounced over a stone in the road and Duke coughed for real. Audrey's eyes had adjusted enough to the gloom to note that Duke's cheek was bleeding from the long gash drawn by the whip, blood sliding down slowly, unchecked. Malcove's face fixed on the three of them in turn with entertained calculation. A chill stole over Audrey. She hadn't had a _lot_ of dealings with Malcove, enough to know he was kind of an ass and kind of obsessive when it came to doing his own thing, but then she knew plenty of people like that who wouldn't go this far. She got it in the moment before Duke said it.

"...That's her _character_."

* * *

Lock, then, was a casualty of their ignorance. He had, when Audrey thought back to the threat- and tension-saturated atmosphere of that train journey, always been _too_ big, _too_ outlandish and over the top, hitting the villain clichés by the dozen. She had wondered at the time how a geek set loose and unfettered had suddenly become _that_.

The four-fold nexus of this Trouble were as entrenched in it as the rest of Haven. When it had seemed Lock remembered them, he'd been remembering _this_ apocryphal version of them, and in their dealings with him, the truth had not had chance to become clear.

Audrey couldn't truly feel sorry for killing him, when she thought about the fall from the airship. His cruelty in that moment was caught in vivid snapshots in her memory. The _damage_ to her memory, which had already been screwed around plenty, probably yet waited to reveal its full extent. That was quite aside from the things he had said on the train, his aggressive and threatening presence through the journey, _Butler_...

Duke had already asserted that he could not kill Lillian. What of the rest of them, now they knew they at least weren't _consciously_ the perpetrators? The weight of maintaining this world seemed to be shared between the four of them - three now - in a joint vision Audrey supposed could help explain why it was so big in scale. But Malcove still had to be the crux. It _was_ his Trouble...? A moment of doubt solidified her certainty. Malcove was their leader, and had always had his own sort of odd charisma. It would take that focus to shape the overall vision. It had to be Malcove.

Lock had forced her hand. Killing a Troubled person was absolutely a last ditch solution, but she was tired, and her head ached, and this particular Trouble had done _such things_. To her friends, to the world. Time was running out for both her and for Haven. The lure of that solution, if it could make all of this over quickly, was undeniable.

She looked at Duke carefully. They _might_ be able to do it right now, even cuffed, if they were fast enough. Duke's face was stony. They hadn't had any confirmation that Duke's Trouble had carried over to Malcove's world, but this Trouble _had already_ cracked a little when Lock died by her own hand. Malcove alone might be enough...

She held herself back through the rest of the journey, tension curling through limbs that wanted to move, muscles rigid. She felt Duke's hand slide onto her knee and rub soothingly through the dress.

Killing them could work, as it had with Lock, restoring further portions of memory to the world. But especially in light of this new information, surely talking them down was better.

They needed to get control of this situation and then, preferably, deal with the remaining trio one by one.

The coach drew to a halt. With the windows shuttered, it wasn't until Malcove kicked the door open that they could see they were outside of a mansion house, gleaming in a soft orange glow from the post-mounted oil or gas lamps ranged in front of it. Tucked back off the street, it squatted in a walled courtyard garden with a broad drive looping around it for the coach. The grass and plants were tinged slightly grey not just from the fast-darkening evening gloom, but from the persistent dust and smog of Heppa. As they disembarked from the coach, the towers were visible over to the west, but the mansion was on enough of a rise that the sea was visible in the other direction.

Audrey had almost forgotten that if Haven was on the coast, so too was Heppa. So much of this Trouble was focused inland and _upward_. Indeed, Heppa looked more like Haven from here than any view that she had seen of it. That seemed ironic, when this was the lair of those who most emphatically wanted it to _not_ be Haven but a sprawling industrial steampunk metropolis.

She could see steamboats and ferries chugging out across the water, and wondered if they truly had anywhere to go. There had to be a boundary out in a seaward direction, too. If their destinations were also created ones, she hoped ending this Trouble didn't leave anyone stranded in the middle of the sea.

"Look," said Duke, pointing with his cuffed hands, cupping the same view between his palms for Lillian and Malcove. "Look at it. _Look at it_ , you guys. That's our home. You can almost see it now. Haven-"

"Don't say that word!" Lillian lashed out with her open palm, her other hand reaching again for the lash to follow through more literally. Nathan grabbed her hand and she made a sound of frustration, glaring at Malcove.

"Yes, I think we can dispense with _this_ now." Malcove twirled a finger in the air, generally toward Nathan. "So good of him to accompany us to keep watch over his former friends. Now we can freely destroy the automaton... and _they_ can watch." He gave a leering smile and waved a hand to the disembarking coach driver disinterestedly. "Leave the horses. Find and fetch Cris."

Nathan had stepped back from Lillian, drawing his gun. "I suppose we're all revealing our true colours now." He rooted in his jacket and tossed a second gun to Audrey. Duke was kicking his shoe off to get at the handcuff key and apparently Nathan decided not to risk a second blind grab.

"Drop that whip on the ground, you _bitch_." Audrey said to Lillian, awkwardly holding the pistol with her hands still cuffed. "Now all the rest of the arsenal." She tossed her head at the coachman. "Don't bother fetching Cris. We'll find him ourselves."

Keys in one hand, Duke picked up Lillian's fallen weapons with the other and moved to unlock Audrey. She angled her hands so he could better score the lock, but kept her aim true, even though Nathan was also still covering both Malcove and Lillian.

"Well," Malcove said, taking a step further around Nathan and giving him an intrigued inspection. "I truly didn't expect that. Are you still in there, Wuornos? Inside this... _shell_ of metal?"

"Uh-uh." Duke grabbed him, and re-cuffed him with Audrey's cuffs, then backed off from him like he might bite, and reached with the second set of cuffs for Lillian.

"Do you know me?" Nathan shot back at Malcove. "Because I don't know you. Malcove was an ass, but he wouldn't have done this. Or at least if he had, he wouldn't think it was a grand idea, and he wouldn't be planning to murder to keep it."

"You _killed Lock_ ," Malcove raged back. "You people don't get to make moral judgements on us!"

" _I_ killed Lock," Audrey said, relief and confidence flooding in with her hands free again. "So Duke and Nathan get to judge as they like. Come on. Let's all go inside, nice and slowly and politely. We can take tea." She paused at the thought of the staff on the premises, starting with the coachman, who Duke was pointing at, face scrunched up in askance. "Damn it... Duke, cuff him to the coach for now. There's probably a dozen bystanders in this place who won't be on our side if they decide to pitch in on this." Bad enough to face the prospect of having to kill three people who weren't in control of their actions to win the day, without the potential for further collateral.

"They might not be real," Nathan said. "A lot of the police aren't real, I think, just creations of this Trouble. The automata especially." He looked a little morose and conflicted about that.

"Well, I for one am _glad_ that clusterfuck didn't happen to anyone else," Duke said. "Buddy? Keep strong, huh." He patted his hand on Nathan's chest on his way to tie the coachman to his charge. He had no handcuffs left, so used Lillian's whip for rope.

"Oh, how _sweet_ ," Malcove sneered. "I guess you found out what Lock was playing at with the automata?"

"You're a cartoon, man!" Duke said, flinging out his hands. "Don't you _get_ that? You were real, whole, three dimensional, and you turned yourself into a cardboard cutout of some fantasy of who you'd rather be, and you _don't even know_! Come on, Malcove! Mal! Woody! You know me. I mean, fuck, I was even kind of on your side in the whole event-arrangements deal. You have to sense somewhere in there that this isn't the real you! You're a dick, but you're not _this_ much of a dick. The real you would understand that this needs to end!"

Malcove just glared back sullenly.

Nathan said, "Let's get inside, before the staff get on the telephones to call for help."

Audrey had forgotten that Heppa - or at least the very rich of Heppa - had that rudimentary phone system. "Why don't you go ahead of us and make sure the phones are disconnected, Nathan. Your presence shouldn't scare the staff. You have a badge to wave at them and a pretext to be here."

"But watch out for Cris Cooley," Duke called after him as Nathan set off at a pace almost a sprint. "Don't forget he'll probably recognise your metal ass, too!"

"Have you been emulating Lock?" Malcove asked with amusement, picking something up from their interactions.

"Shut the fuck up." Duke jabbed the gun at him and gave every impression he'd _really like_ to pull the trigger. "That's _actually_ my boyfriend, you bastard."

"Okay, we're following them into the house," Audrey ordered. "But slowly. Don't make any sudden moves, because I am _so_ ready to shoot you after the last few days."

"I thought Lock killed you," Malcove said. "I still don't know how you survived."

"Yours to wonder. _Move_."

Duke fell in with Lillian, a few steps behind them. "I still don't believe that you don't remember me. We were even sort of friends."

She made a haughty little noise. "Many people who've followed my career _think_ they know me."

Help arrived from an unexpected source. "Of course you know him," Malcove said testily. "He was supposed to help us in our original great plan, but he betrayed us to Wuornos in the end."

"That's how you remember it?" Duke asked flatly. "Does this all take place in some cloud fortress surrounded by Asgardian gods? Did you fall from the sky to recreate this world? This is a fucking _fishing village in Maine_. Sure, it attracts a few tourists in the summer - not so many for Maine winters. Lobster and tourism, that's your great origin. You guys were just folks sitting around in a bar - _my_ bar - playing board game campaigns. Which, hey, cool with me so long as it _doesn't destroy my world and everything dear to me_. I have a problem with that last part."

They'd passed the entrance lobby into a large hallway, but Nathan came through a side door, and he motioned them back. Audrey gestured the others into the lobby again and pulled the door to, returning Nathan's nod. She watched as Nathan led a troop of staff past and didn't open the door again until they were all out of view.

"I don't remember you," Lillian said to Duke as they walked into the hallway, her tone for the first time self-questioning. "Why would I not remember you?"

"Because this Trouble... this _world._.. has fucked everyone's memory over," Duke said. "What you do remember from before isn't necessarily the truth. What you remember from _here_ definitely isn't real."

"No." She shook her head. "I can't accept that."

"Stay with them," Audrey said to Duke, and went to peer into the rooms off the hallway. She found one that looked suitable, lined with bookshelves covered by glass doors, with nice plush chairs to sit in and just two doors in the same wall, entering off the hallway, to cover, and not too many potential weapons lying about. She motioned them all in, then hung back at the doorway, covering the front door and the stairs and waiting for Nathan.

"Where's Cooley?" she asked over her shoulder.

Lillian laughed. "You are in so much trouble you don't even know."

"From Cris the ubergeek?" Duke asked. "Audrey, we'll find him locked away somewhere reading a book."

Audrey frowned. "They say 'watch out for the quiet ones'." She glared at Malcove. "Where is he? In this world, _what_ is he?"

Malcove just smiled.

Nathan came back. "I've escorted all the staff I could find from the premises. Told them it was police business and they shouldn't come back today. The coach driver is still tied up outside, though, and I saw no sign of the fourth one."

"Cris," Audrey corrected. "Do you know anything about him?"

"I don't think he ever spoke to me. Don't think he spoke much to anyone."

She thought about it, then turned to Duke. "Do you know anything about his _character_?"

Behind her, the front door slammed shut, closely followed by the second door adjoining the room where Duke, Malcove and Lillian were to the hallway.

Nathan slapped his hand on the nearest door before it could follow and cut their party in two. It shuddered under his metal palm as though it was trying to slam, all the same.

Duke said uneasily, "That was a gust of wind, right?"

"Come on." Nathan waved Audrey in under the arch of his arm, then strode past her into the room, letting the door bang normally behind him. He headed for the huge bookshelves that lined the back of the room. He started ticking the subjects off with his extended gloved fingers. "Engineering, clockwork..." Lock... "Society and law..." Malcove... "Archaeology, history, geography..." Lillian... "Alchemy... Magic... magic..." He drew to a halt even as his words ran down, and cast a helpless glance back at Duke and Audrey. She could see it warring in him. What else were the Troubles? Jess Minion had said to him, all that time ago, but this was Nathan and there was magic and then there was _magic_.

But Lock, Malcove, Lillian and Cris had rewritten the laws of reality itself when they made this world. Nathan, _and_ Duke, had lived a whole life inside it. They _knew_ such things existed.

Audrey had... _kind of_ known that magic existed in Malcove's world, although why Victoriana and steam technology should go hand in hand with such a thing was beyond her. She'd known it was used to create automata, to shape their memory and minds and do the things that were beyond the capacity of clockwork... There really _was_ that little bit of magic in Nathan, at least right now. She did not know what to expect of a magical attack.

"Cris!" Audrey yelled, her mind a torrent of curses. "We're not here to hurt you or your friends! We just need to put the world back how it was. If you think about it... really _think_... then you'll know that's what you should do, as well!"

Lillian, perched on the couch next to Malcove under Duke's guard, laughed again and Nathan went so far as cuff the back of her head with the side of his hand, startling Duke a bit, although the blow wasn't hard. A moment later, Nathan was picked up and slammed into the wall by some unseen force. He dropped his gun, but Duke and Audrey covered their prisoners until he could pick himself up and scramble to get it. It tried to move out of his hand, but he pounced and clutched it firmly.

"Are you all right?" Duke asked.

"Yes," Nathan bit off, unhappily. "This is just _great_. Where is this guy?"

"I'm sure he'll be here very soon," Malcove said, his reassuring tone all mocking.

"Damn it!" Audrey heard Nathan's fingers lock around the gun. "He's a magic user. He's not _infallible_ , he's not _immortal_. As long as these two are under control, we can deal with this. He can only use one spell at a time, and he can't do them while he's distracted. He has to pick his moves wisely because every one will wear him out, just like a round of a physical fight."

"I'm glad you know something about this," Duke said, "because I really, really don't. I mean, I met a guy once. Gave him a ride out to one of the outlying city-states. But he didn't do any spells in front of me, just... wore robes and used big words. But half of me can't even believe - I mean, _fuck_ , magic?!"

"'What else are the Troubles?'" Nathan said with a certain nostalgic wryness.

"If you say so," Duke shot back.

"We're trained in what to do if we encounter a magic user. I've got this."

Audrey nodded grimly as Nathan started backing for the door. "We came here to get through to these people. We need to break the conditioning this world has placed over them. If we can cause them to remember, maybe we can break this Trouble down further before anything _else_ escalates." She cast a look uneasily around her.

Nathan nodded. "You keep trying. I'll try to find Cooley. I at least somewhat know what I'm doing, I'm the one of us he'll find it hardest to hurt, and I'm no use here anyway - all I am is the person they remember spoiling their party."

"You do have a knack," Duke said. "I..." He took a step forward then looked dubiously at the two prisoners.

"Don't leave Audrey alone with them unless you have to," Nathan said, and crossed to the door.

"I hope he reduces you to _scrap_!" Lillian yelled at his back. Nathan ignored her and yanked the door handle. It didn't seem to want to open under his hand, but after another try failed, he shoulder-rammed it, splintering the wood, and punched and kicked through the edges of the hole until it was big enough to step through.

It was startling to see him _do_ that and reinforce how much potential force for destruction his automaton body contained.

"Okay, so, what?" Duke asked.

"You're the one who knows them best," Audrey said. "Let's go over what really happened in the run-up to this, at least what you saw of it. The things they did and said in your bar. What did their group do? I mean, this was fun for them, right? Good times were had. Maybe that can call them back to their old, real selves."

"That's going to go _sooo_ well," Lillian said.

" _You_ ," Duke said, pointing. "You're the one who came up and asked me if your group could use my bar every Thursday night for your gaming. You did that because we'd been talking on and off since you moved to this god-forsaken town - hell, don't ask me why you'd ever want to do _that_ \- and started coming to the _Gull_. That was about six months ago. I wasn't dating Nathan and Audrey then, so yeah, I was pretty flirty. Don't _tell_ me you don't know me, because I know _all_ your secrets, poured out over the vodka and blackcurrents to your trusty bartender on those late nights."

Lillian gaped at him.

"Yeah. Your great origin story is a table at the back of _The Grey Gull_. Your great grudge with the world comes from Nathan - and much as I love him, yeah, the guy is still kind of a dick over that kind of thing - saying "Um, nope" to your event in the sports hall because you didn't tick all the health and safety boxes because Woody thought that shit didn't matter. That does _not_ make it okay to turn the whole town and more into a substitute for it!"

"You weren't that close to her," Malcove said.

Duke rounded on him. "Just because you're the leader of this little band doesn't mean the rest don't have a life that happened without you. Sure, you had ideas, imagination, scope, and I saw them all gather around you like moths to a flame - but they still had their _own_ ideas too. Or they, and you, would never have got here."

"Lock, for example," Audrey said quietly. " _Tell me_ that got out of control, because I know for a fact that all those excesses weren't just following orders, but what I want to know is were they with your _blessing_?"

What the hell were they going to charge them with when this was over? she wondered. How culpable were they, really? Could she skew things to land them with a negligent homicide charge over Lock's death? Or anyone else's?

While Duke started in on Lillian again, Audrey glanced worriedly at the broken door out of which Nathan had gone.

A faint bang from somewhere that side of the house and vaguely above them made her jump and she dragged her gaze back to Malcove. She needed to fix this. She took a breath. "Moths to a flame, right, Duke? But this Trouble was held steady by _four people_... That's not something we've seen before. It has to be Malcove's particular influence and leadership which made that happen. If that's true..." She pinned his eyes with her own. "Then _you're_ the one who killed Lock. You brought your friends into this, now one of them is _dead_. Never mind what you remember, that's why you wanted me to watch you kill Nathan, isn't it? So that I'd know what it was like to lose the friends who helped me to get this far. You want me to feel what you feel. You want to be able to _blame_ me - well, it's _not_ my fault. Lock was trying to kill me and I defended myself. _You_ wanted me out of the way. He did it for you! Whose fault does that make it, Malcove?"

His eyes burned hate at her, but he didn't have to like her to get the point. She needed - she needed for him to _doubt_. To regret this, wish it undone, wish it _away_. Maybe that would be enough to put a crack through the world of his imaginings.

"I didn't know Lock outside of this world," Audrey said, "and Duke and Nathan didn't know him well, and even then, _none_ of us had the right memories at that time. But from what Duke and Nathan have observed of the two of you, it was what you all made him into that ensured he had to die." She bent in toward Malcove as she said the words, and twisted her mouth into a nasty smile.

A _thump_ sounded in the hallway outside, rather closer than the last loud noises they had heard. Audrey didn't particularly want to break the moment, and refused to allow the sound to pull her attention away. She barely registered Lillian staring at Duke in conflict, and Duke turning to the door, his step toward it and uneasy words of, "I'll go see-"

Nathan hurtling back through the broken shards of the door was _not_ something she could ignore. Well... he didn't come _through_ it, exactly, he sort of stuck _in_ it, and the wood made an awful grating, splintering sound as he struggled to extricate himself. His metal body was faintly steaming, although his clothes weren't wet. Or was that steam or smoke? Audrey smelled hot metal, sharp in her senses.

"Nathan!" she exclaimed.

He looked up from his wedged position. "I brought Cris Cooley," he said, with a deadpan flat delivery that was trying hard to be a joke.

"Good work on that." Duke matched him for tone and offered a thumbs up. He reached to help Nathan, but pulled his hand sharply back with a yelp. "Shit, man, you're _hot_! And I mean, okay, yeah, that too, but!" He picked up a cushion and wrapped it around Nathan's wrist, this time. He was just in time to pull himself and Nathan out of the way of another blast of... something. They clattered to the floor behind the couch, a cry of pain from Duke suggesting he'd been unfortunate enough to land underneath.

A man strode through the door in their wake.

Audrey hadn't known Cooley. She could barely remember having _met_ Cooley. They'd been dealing with Nathan, not her. She did _murders_ and _Troubles_ , not community events. That, she'd told him, _that_ was his burden of being Chief, and have at it, tiger.

Cooley today was a thin, ginger-haired man wearing a battered frock coat in dark colours and a thing like a ruffled scarf that was mostly adrift and asymmetrical down his breast, but had little embroidered stars on it. He didn't especially _look_ inordinately dangerous, as a person, but he looked pale and cross and the fact his form was crackling with a kind of silver-white lightning was off-putting, to say the least.

Duke and Nathan's heads peeped out from the top of the couch like they were kids scared into hiding by _The Twilight Zone_.

"That didn't fry any circuits?" Duke demanded with great concern, dragging his attention from the ginger lightning bolt to Nathan.

"No circuits to fry," Nathan said. "Magic he can do, _mechanics_ he can't. Or at least, not my clockwork ones. I'm fine, just try not to touch me for another few minutes."

If he was alive, he'd have been cooked, Audrey thought. "Enough!" she yelled, adjusting her aim to cover Cooley, in the doorway.

"No," he said, and the weapon flew out of her hand.

She checked her impulse to dive after it. Duke and Nathan were right there behind her on the couch, and at least Duke was still armed. Instead, she held up her empty hands. "Okay, you know what? I don't need that thing, because _I am not here to hurt you_. We didn't find out about Lock until too late, but you guys are not yourselves. You've been twisted by this world more than anyone, only you can't see it because you think you _control_ it." She turned and cast back to Duke, who knew these people.

"Your characters, man!" Duke said. "I mean, the magical _kabam!_ is very cool, but at the cost of your _self_? It's not a deal I'd take. Audrey is not here to ruin your game. She's here to fix you and everyone else!" He rose from behind the couch to join her, but Nathan hunched down further and stayed where he was, and Audrey heard the reassuring small sounds of a gun being quietly checked. It looked like Duke had passed his across to Nathan. "You turned a dude into spare parts just for doing his job. You put people in _poverty_ out on those streets, and some of them are _real_ people. The guy who sold me take-out food since I was seven years old! Think about it. Have you _seen_ the people down there in the streets? Did you bother to look? If this world is your creation, your ideal whatever, then I'm sorry but it _sucks_."

There was a choked sound from Lillian. "I've - I've seen the children on the streets," she said. "We did that? Were they not always there? Before-" Audrey turned her way just in time to see her eyes mist over with a different note of remembrance. Confusion clouded her face, then a new clarity entered it. " _Duke_?" She looked at him as though seeing him for the first time. "What's - what is-?"

" _Lillian_ ," Malcove said, intently. "Don't listen to them. They're trying to trick us."

"It isn't a trick," Audrey said, and reached for Lillian's hand as she stared down at the cuffs. Audrey thought it was too late already for Malcove's fight-back. She'd seen the same change in Duke's eyes, in Nathan's. Lillian _remembered_. "Let me get those for you. Nathan, the keys..."

"No!" Malcove raged. "No!" His hands rose to his head. "You won't trick me. You've some different kind of sorcery at work here! Cris, you must fight her. Find a way to undo this. She killed Brad!"

" _Quiet_." Nathan popped up from the back of the couch behind Malcove's head, clamping his shoulder heavily under the heel of the hand still locked around the gun. He edged toward Audrey, extending his hand with the keys in it. "He threw her off an _airship_ , you bastard."

"Oh my God." Lillian gripped the arm of the couch with her fingernails and looked faint, while Audrey deftly turned the key to release her.

Duke was sort of blocking with his body, placing himself between Audrey and Cooley. Cooley had a sheen of sweat on his face and was breathing like he'd run a marathon. Too much magic too quickly, and by the look of it, Nathan was right. He wasn't immortal. He had limits that were getting increasingly closer. Duke risked a glance back to try and reassure Lillian.

"They haven't been out in the world the way I have," Lillian said. "They don't know. They haven't seen. Cris, all you've done is sit up there with your books, playing with magic that _works_. Woody's been fixated on the workings of the city, the official buildings, the infrastructure, the automated justice system... Brad... oh my God, what did he _do_?" She pressed a hand to her mouth.

Duke shook his head and made a discomforted grunt. He looked back to Cris, then away, distracted and vague. Nathan recovered quicker, blinking and raising his pistol again before it had completely dipped, keeping his hold on Malcove. "It's - easier," he said, gruffly. "The memories of being _me_ again feel closer... more like Chief Wuornos than the automaton." His eyes tracked down his arms, but they stayed metal.

"Two down," Duke said, tension making his voice grave.

Audrey turned her attention fully to Malcove, who looked stricken and furious, but was restrained by Nathan's hand on his shoulder. "If she remembers, that means _you_ have to remember more, too. Even if you don't want to acknowledge it. We _know_ that's how its worked before."

" _When you killed Lock_ ," Malcove enunciated, very clearly, looking at Cooley.

...Whose face set in determination as he reached out into empty air. Before Audrey was able to anticipate what he was aiming to do, her own fallen gun had flown to his fingers - more sluggishly than he'd been flinging things around earlier, but still too fast for her lunge to stamp on it and keep it in place.

Duke moved to remain between Cooley and Audrey as Cooley moved.

" _Cooley_ ," Nathan snapped, rising a fraction more from behind the couch as he set his gun to the back of Malcove's head.

"Aim for his _eye!_ " Malcove shouted, raising his voice a split second after Nathan, ducking and squirming from his grip. He couldn't move far or fast, but he didn't have to, to be just out of Nathan's line of fire for a second, and clear a path between Nathan and Cooley.

Cooley pointed the gun at Nathan's head and fired.

" _No!_ " Audrey yelled. There was a metallic impact, and something splintered, and Nathan dropped.

"You _fuck_ ," said Duke, and charged to tackle Cooley. But the gun was already lowering in his hand, his mouth was wide and horrified, and his expression spoke of anything but ongoing danger.

" _Chief Wuornos_?!" he squeaked, and Duke skidded to a halt, watching him warily.

Audrey almost didn't care. She was already moving. She planted her feet on Malcove's toes and then in his gut, climbing on him as she launched herself over the couch. "Nathan!"

He lay on his back on the floor, utterly still. One eye stared up to the ceiling. The other eye... was an empty socket. Audrey felt like her heart had just dropped out of her chest. Until she saw something else that robbed her of breath, and sagged against the back of the couch, only staying on her feet by its support. She froze there, holding her breath, unable to move or speak.

"Chief Wuornos... Wait! I didn't mean to..." Cooley was overtly panicking now. Duke stepped out of his way to let him move freely, and he rounded the couch at a staggering run and dropped beside the clockwork body - Cris Cooley had clearly never contemplated shooting anyone in his _life_. "No. No, no, no, _no_..." His hands grasped the floor, clawing the pile of the carpet for a moment before they dared catch Nathan's shoulders.

Audrey looked with concern at Duke, who was moving up behind Cooley, his steps as mechanical as an automaton's.

"Cris..." That wheeze was Malcove, struggling painfully to rise and speak after getting Audrey's full weight in his stomach. He turned and faced backwards over the couch. "You... _weak_..." But when his eyes fixed on Nathan's body, his breath started to draw in and out in even more pained wheezing, as though he was having a fit. "That's... that..." Shaking, he covered his face with his hands. Lillian came up close behind him to grip his shoulders, shock in her face as she stared between Audrey and Duke.

"I'm so sorry," she babbled. "He didn't mean to... He'd never... Oh, God, you can _fix_ him, can't you? In this world, he's a machine. You can fix him..."

"His brain is destroyed," Duke growled. He swallowed and his throat twisted down on the words, choking them. He surged to his knees, shoving Cooley out of the way. "...Damn it, Nathan..."

His hands roamed over Nathan's body, his flare of emotion already giving way to resignation. His eyes showed too much white. "Nathan! Damn, damn, _damn_..." He cupped the wood-carved face in both hands, and pulled Nathan's body up over his knees.

Audrey opened her mouth to speak.

"It's not going to _be_ this world for much longer," Cooley said, staggering back, voice and limbs trembling, expression hunted and guilty and lost. "Can't you feel it unravelling...?"

Audrey could see the reflection of that truth in the eyes of everyone else. Maybe it even broke through to Duke, who was making a low moan through his grit teeth as he clung to Nathan, in a way that made her _ache_.

" _Duke_ ," she said.

She said it almost the same time as Nathan grunted and said, with exasperation and a significant amount of guilty tension, " _Duke_."

Audrey added, urgently, "Nathan! Put your eye back in before the world changes!"

Duke dropped Nathan onto the floor with a _clank_ and a raw curse. "You absolute _shit_."

"Um..." Nathan scrabbled with his hand, slewing his body to one side to reach up to his face, and Duke caught on and grabbed, helping to guide the hand that couldn't feel what it was doing, still swearing at him all the way. "Oh, you _shit_ , you utter, utter... I am going to make you fucking pay for that, _forever_ , you..."

"Heard Cooley start to break," Nathan gasped, his voice airbag wheezing from his twisted up position on the floor. The glass eyeball clicked back into its socket. "Thought I'd run with it. Bullet hit me in the neck - he's not that good a shot. Jolted the torsion spring in my spine and knocked me down, though."

"... _Bastard_. You're just a _bastard_."

"I tried to tell you! Audrey got it!"

"Tried to what, _how_?" Duke raged. "Fuck you!" Duke was flailing his long arms, crazy mad with the flip from grief to relief, and the world was _melting_ around him. Even Audrey could see it now.

"I twitched my foot! It's not my fault if you don't pay attention!"

The world was melting around them, and Duke and Nathan _still_ found time for argument.

"You owe me. You owe me _so hard_..."

"What... what did we _do_?" The hoarse question from the man himself was the last plaintive note Audrey heard before Malcove's world bled out of existence.


	17. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

Audrey blinked and found herself in the living room of somebody else's home, which was definitely not a mansion, still wearing a floofy corset dress. The old woman in the armchair gave a little start and pointed at her and stuttered, and a similarly elderly man stumbled in through the door half shouting, "Doris?!" He moved at a fairly sharp pace considering his age.

Audrey lifted her hands. "I'm really sorry," she said, shouting over the volume of the TV behind her. "It's a... Haven thing. I'll go now."

"Oh," the woman said, and flailed the remote like a weapon. "Well, hurry up and get out of the way of my soap."

"I'll show you the door," the man said, very dourly. "You're not going to be appearing in this house again, are you?"

Their sullen suspicion but general acceptance of the situation was sort of comforting in its whole homey, reassuring _Haven_ -ness.

"No," Audrey said. "This is absolutely a one-off. I'm really sorry, again. Enjoy your soap."

As soon as she got outside, she retrieved her phone from the dress - cursing because after four days or more it was running low on charge - and called up Nathan. Her heart beat a little wildly as she waited for him to answer. There'd been so much potential for damage... All the hits he'd taken as a machine, let alone the fact he'd _been_ a machine... They hadn't even had chance to evaluate the effects of Cooley's attacks, or ensure the secure replacement of Nathan's _eye_... Though she reluctantly supposed that was less crucial than other repercussions, even if it had been more visually and viscerally alarming.

The engaged tone caught her off guard, but she quickly decided that wherever Duke had ended up, he must have had the same instant panic about Nathan and been able to get to a phone quicker. Perhaps they had been restored to themselves exactly as they were when they were first transformed, including where they'd physically _been_. Nathan was alright, she told herself. _Duke_ was alright. She tried again, and this time Nathan answered almost at once. "Audrey. Are you-?"

"Me first," she said. " _Nathan_. Are you okay?"

There was a brief silence. "I feel... really strange. Although, perhaps that's not the right word. I remember being made of _metal_."

Audrey let out a long, shaky breath because at least that meant that he was not made of metal any more. And he was _here_ , and talking to her, and sounded okay, which didn't necessarily mean that there weren't repercussions, because his own body was a mystery to him, but there was nothing drastic and immediate and they could explore the rest _later_. "But you're not now," she asserted, just to be sure.

"No, I'm me again. But are you-?"

"Fine," she said, casting a glance back at the house she'd appeared in and the suspicious old couple watching her intently as she stepped out of the gate and made a show of closing it before she turned her attention back to the phone. "Where are you?"

The night-time view of Haven from the road was over the same - more or less - vista that she had seen from the manor house gardens. Even as Nathan answered, she realised that she had just... _stayed where she was_ , while the Trouble reworked the world around her. Reworked the rest of them as it _could not_ do her. "In my office. Everything here looks normal." Nathan paused. "The computer says it's the 17th of October. Three days to the Hunter."

Audrey sighed. "There's time... That doesn't matter right now. What about Duke?"

"He's fine, too. He's coming here. Where are you? I thought you'd be here, with me." The tension in his voice was considerable, even though _she_ hadn't been damaged or deformed nearly so much by their recent experiences.

"I'm pretty much still right where Malcove's HQ was," she admitted, "and I'm going to need a lift. But I'll call Duke. Nathan, don't worry about me. We need to find Malcove and the others, and make sure this isn't going to reverse itself if they start having regrets. We'll come to you at the police station. Okay?" She said it firmly, intending that to end the call.

" _Audrey_ ," Nathan said quickly. "Wait."

Something in his tone made her pause after all. It wasn't a _bad_ something, she didn't think, just a something that he was bursting to tell her. So she waited.

"Duke," he said, a laugh and sudden lightness and relief filling his voice as he spoke. "He called from the marina, Audrey. From the _Cape Rouge_."

* * *

A great deal of things had been returned to how they were - how they should be - as if they'd never been changed at all.

Duke's relief that his boat was included in that tally was considerably outmatched by the fact Nathan was. He'd never been so glad to see Nathan's stony, pensive face as he was in the moment he charged into the police station on Audrey's heels and found Nate stalking back and forth in his office. "Oh, you _asshole_ ," he said fondly, and embraced Nathan with an enthusiasm that made the other man squirm and yelp, with the audience of subordinates laughing on through the windows of his office. Audrey slipped a hand around them both to more quietly join in. On the way over, Audrey had seemed subdued, but she seemed _okay_ and, well, Audrey had been a bit subdued for the last week or two of regular time already, with the clock ticking.

That was something Duke remembered much better now. The immediacy of his own life, which he _remembered_ seeming so remote and far away from the other side, was restored. The other life was fading memories.

He remembered thinking that would hurt, but right now it didn't.

Nathan choked finally, "Are you _done_?" He was kind of doing that thing where he pretended he hadn't relished every moment of the hug. His staff were nodding or shaking heads and grinning and - very quickly going back to work, as Nathan took a step closer to the glass and cast his glower outwards, hands gravitating to his hips. A couple of heads risked another peek anyway, probably drawn to take that risk by the sight of Audrey in a corset.

Nathan turned around again slowly, his face oddly set. "They don't remember. They don't even know anything happened."

"Yeah," Duke said. "But my _boat_ doesn't remember either. I'm pretty glad about that."

Nathan gave him a grim nod, like metal plates in place of skin and a whole body clockwork tick in place of a heartbeat were minor inconveniences. "I'm glad about the _Rouge_ ," he said awkwardly. "I'd hate for you to lose your home."

Duke detected guilt in there, but didn't know why; maybe it was a clockwork throwback. He gestured with both hands and vague frustration and willed Nathan to _get it_. "It doesn't matter about the boat. Not next to you. My home is the two of _you_."

The whole thing about the boat was, always had been, that he could light out of there at any time, set sail and be gone, leave Haven and everyone in it behind him. That had become something he'd no intention of doing any time soon, and nothing could have made him realise it quite so much as a return to those days of impermanence.

It remained a realisation tainted by the fact that Audrey might leave.

She said, "Everything got put back the same as it was. Reset. Except me."

"Because Troubles don't work on you," Nathan said gently. "So... your head?"

"Still a mess," she said wryly. "And I _know_ , Nathan, I am going to call the hospital, now that I _can_ call them, but first let's make sure everything is going to be okay with Haven."

"Everything got put back the same except _time_ ," Duke corrected heavily, "We lost nearly a week."

If Audrey went, that still left Nathan. Duke fixed his eyes on Nathan and wondered if, without her, they could hold together. Would losing her bind or break them?

He didn't know, but it wasn't like he'd ever been lucky.

"Yeah," Audrey huffed, clearly not appreciative of the reminder. "But we still _have_ some time. Right now, all I want is to check on Malcove and make sure that this return to normality _sticks_."

"It's Haven," Nathan said. "Anything resembling 'normality' is only going to be a temporary blip."

* * *

Malcove, Lillian and Cooley were in the _Gull_ , in costume, arranged around a table set with boards and dice. A few other games shared the corner, tonight.

It was a little known fact that Garland Wuornos had liked war campaign games and, in a memorable few years when Nathan was around thirteen and fourteen, had introduced them to the Teagues. So Nathan did, in fact, know the processes of what they were doing quite well, much to his childhood's detriment.

It was a shock to see them like this, after the threat they had represented.

It was particularly a shock to see them with _Lock_.

" _Everything_ got reset," Audrey mouthed, as Nathan and Duke both turned their heads to her uneasily.

Malcove saw them standing there by the counter and raised his chin, showing an aggressive, sullen jawline. "Oh, look there, it's Chief Wuornos. Busy chasing off anything that might bring excitement to this town?"

"Evening, Woody," Nathan said, and stared at him intently, but the attention only made him look more pissed.

"Fucking law," he heard Lock mutter, and only Lillian looked conflicted, unhappily eying Duke standing with the two cops.

"So that's it?" muttered Duke. "They get away with it? The Trouble gets overwritten and everything trundles on, and we forget that they tried to kill you, _both_ of you, and damn near succeeded?"

Audrey tipped a shoulder, teeth nipping visibly at her lower lip. "I don't see what choice we have. After all, the trade-off we get is that _no-one dies_." Her mouth spread into the thin line of a frown as she looked at Lock, whose murder attempt _had_ to haunt her... The damage it had done, Nathan was well aware, had yet to reveal its whole toll. Audrey could have a permanent injury, a loss to memory or brain function on top of the memory issues she'd started out with. "I'm more immediately worried about how we avoid a repeat cycle if the lesson wasn't learned."

Duke sighed and nodded. "If you can't remember your mistakes to learn from them..." For some reason, he shifted his gaze to Nathan.

...While Audrey promptly followed up with, "If you gave them _something_. Scope for a smaller event."

"Good for my business, too," Duke said.

Nathan looked at his hands, which were no longer metal. Lifting the arms he could still not feel, the movement reminded him he had the thread of body awareness that movement gave him back again, just like he had scent and taste and the other things which made life _living_.

Being made of clockwork had been a dehumanising experience, and he wasn't looking to pay any favours to the people who'd dragged him through that. After what they'd done to him, to Audrey, and almost costing Duke the _Rouge_... what his lovers were suggesting was repellent to him. "You're not _serious_? A minute ago, you were bemoaning that they'd go unpunished, and now you want me to _reward_ them?"

"The greater good, man," Duke said, slapping his shoulder and then squeezing it.

"They weren't themselves," Audrey reminded him. "It would more reliably stabilize Haven and their... _Malcove's_ Trouble."

"... _Fine_ ," Nathan bit off, and strode over to the table, his feet banging like hammers on Duke's polished board floors. He probably didn't manage to sound very gracious about it as he rapped, "Malcove? You want to resubmit that paperwork correctly and with the intent to back it up, and we can re-think arrangements for something in the spring."

He curled his hand into a fist, faced with Malcove's staggered gaping. Lock looked caught off guard and... _harmless_ , despite his belligerence a moment before. Nathan was reminded that he hadn't seen the _reality_ of the rest of these people, not really, even if Malcove just seemed to him to have acted like _Malcove_ all the way through. He flexed his fist, to give himself a sense of the coiled violence in his hand, and thought about how he'd dearly love to plant it in Malcove's face. For Audrey, Haven, and for his own humiliations. Instead, he granted favours the man decidedly didn't deserve. For Audrey, and for Haven.

For _himself_ , he'd see about finding some way to throw a spanner in the works of _anything_ ever happening in the spring, and if the Troubles were still around, well, he'd see if they could find some other way to deal with that.

He turned on his heel and left them with the offering of hope. Duke stuck like a clam to his side a moment later, hand on his shoulder returning, then sliding down to his waist, then his butt.

"Well done, man," Duke said. "I _know_ that sucked for you."

Audrey was lagging behind them, casting Malcove's group a last pensive look. Nathan thought sourly that most of the consequences would be on... on her _head_. They would have to talk to the hospital tomorrow. Find out those results... Nathan heard her steps quicken, and she joined them. Then the three of them were out of the _Gull,_ walking over the parking lot.

"Why do you suppose we still remember, if they don't?" Nathan asked, turning as the question occurred to him. It hadn't been what he'd intended to say. "Because we were torn out of the Trouble while it was in full force? Because we were _us_ in there, already, near the end?"

"Who knows?" Duke shrugged. "Just be glad you're flesh and blood again. Though I'm not going to run out of jokes about the whole robot deal for a long, long time..." He cast a sideways glance, smirked and sniggered. "You always were a hardass."

Nathan rolled his eyes.

"Never mind," Audrey said, attempting a smile. "Well... Now we all match, in any case, with memories in our heads of someone else's lives." She lifted her chin. "We fixed Haven and we still have three days left to fix _me_. That's a win."

But her smile didn't reach her eyes.

* * *

Three days later they ended another equally fraught day standing on an empty hillside, watching a meteorite shower harmlessly speckling the sky with bright streaks.

The hillside was empty, at least of the Barn. Its human population was fairly crowded.

Slowly the Guard and their guns peeled off, leaving Vince to field Nathan and Duke's accusing and betrayed stares... as they all stiltedly tried to figure out, in the aftermath of all the day's shocks, what you _did_ when your creepy supernatural Barn didn't show up on its advertised schedule.

"Maybe she's pregnant again?" Vince cast his gaze between Duke and Nathan, then fumbled a bit at the presumption and Audrey's heated glare, shuffling his feet. "Well, then. I suppose that's another year..." He walked away slowly, pausing every so often to turn and look back, then look up the darkening hillside as though still expecting... something.

"I'm not," Audrey said loudly. "I'm _not_ pregnant."

"I'm not breathing a sigh of relief," Duke said, catching himself quickly. "Or- hey, Nathan reacted _exactly the same_."

Nathan glowered at him.

"It's not a baby," Audrey said again, forcefully. "I think it's _me_. They said... from the scan results, they said large areas of my brain were damaged. Remember how they were surprised that I remembered so much as I do? But what if... I felt something _change_. I know I'm not the same as I was. What if I can't do it any more, the thing that the Barn wants from me? Can't make Troubles go away, like I used to. What if she's _dead_ inside my head now, the original me who could do those things, whoever she might have been?"

They stood and regarded the glittering vista of the falling sky in silence.

None of them had an answer.

THE END


End file.
